parables will be from the Gospel of Luke. And we're going to be looking at the very first parable, and that is in Luke chapter 8, verses 4 through 15. Luke chapter 8, verses 4 through 15. This is a well-known parable. It's the first one, which is quite interesting because it gives us a number of hints and ideas of how to study the parables in general. So let me just read this, Luke chapter 8, verses 4 through 15, and then we'll begin commenting on it. And when a great crowd was gathering, and people from town after town came to him, he said in a parable, a sower went out to sow his seed, and as he sowed, some fell along the path and was trampled underfoot, and the birds of the air devoured it. And some fell on the rock, and as it grew up, it withered away. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up with it and choked it. And some fell into good soil and grew and yielded a hundredfold. As he said these things, he called out, he who has ears to hear, let him hear. When his disciples asked him what this parable meant, he said, To you, it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God. But for others, they are in parables so that seeing they may not see and hearing they may not understand. Now, the parable is this. The seed is the word of God. The ones along the path are those who have heard. Then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts so that they may not believe and be saved. And the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy. But these have no root. They believe for a while, and in time of testing, fall away. And as for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go on their way, they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature. As for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, Hold it fast in honest and good hearts and bear fruit with patience. The Lord, as we look at this parable, I pray that you would give us understanding. Give us ears to hear and hearts to be receptive to your gospel message. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Charles Simeon, you've heard me talk about him before. took a pastorate in Trinity Church in Cambridge in 1782. In his first years at the church, there was active opposition by his new parishioners. They did not care for his biblical expositional preaching. In fact, sometimes the congregants would lock the doors of the church to prevent Simeon from getting in to preach the gospel. The minister, however, slowly and gradually won over the congregation and remained pastor of Trinity Church for 54 years. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm all for locking a pastor out of his church, but not for preaching the gospel, rather for not preaching the gospel. Now, the reason I tell you that story, the point of that is that there are various responses by people when they are confronted with the message of the gospel. And indeed, we must be aware that when we, Christians, proclaim its truth, that people will react differently. The gospel is divisive. People respond to it with hostility, with indifference, with joy, and with other emotions and responses. And this is one of Jesus's main points in this parable of the sower. And so let's go to the text and see that very point. Okay. The setting is found in verse four. It says that when a great crowd was gathering and people from town after town came to him, he said in a parable, So the immediate context of our story is actually at the beginning of the chapter, chapter 8, verse 1. Look what it says. It says, soon afterwards, Jesus went on through the cities and villages proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. So Jesus is on a preaching tour of Galilee. He is being quite industrious in his activity of preaching as he speaks in many cities and towns and villages of the Galilee. And the content of his preaching is clear. It is the gospel. It is the good news of the kingdom of God. It is the truth that the fulfillment of God's promises are at hand, that the Messiah is present in order to establish that kingdom. Now in verse four of our passage we see that the response to Jesus' preaching is great and it's widespread. The text indicates that a large crowd was gathering to hear him preach and that they came from many of the surrounding cities. Many had journeyed from quite a distance to hear Jesus preach. D. Martin Lloyd-Jones once said that he would not cross the street to hear himself preach. And indeed, there are many preachers. We should not cross the street to hear him preach. Jesus is not one of them. He is a popular preacher to the crowds of Galilee. They are coming from many of the towns and the villages to hear him proclaim the gospel. Now, it needs to be noted in verse 4 that that verse contains two present participles in Greek. Jesus speaks this parable while, and participle in Greek is an ing verb, okay? And so what we see is Jesus speaks this parable while the crowds are gathering around him and while they are in the process of coming to him. They're gathering and they're coming around him. These participles describe continuous continuous action. The crowds are growing while he is speaking this parable. Now, my point there, I think, is important. The point is that Jesus's parable in the first place is a commentary on the very crowds which are gathering around him at that moment. They are interested in hearing him preach, but understand they are fickle. and how they will respond to his preaching. Jesus is the sower. He is proclaiming the Word of God, and the people right then who are gathering around him are going to respond in various ways to his preaching. I think some of us may have a stilted view of Jesus' preaching, and in particular, people's responses to it, as if whenever he preaches, Everyone is deeply moved. Everyone is convicted. Everyone is penetrated to the heart. And that the message takes deep roots in all who hear him, that these are Jesus's great tent meetings. These are Jesus's great revival meetings. But that's not the case at all. His parable is illustrative of what's happening right then. Of the various responses to his gospel message. It's much like Jesus is having a show and tell time. I'm going to give you a parable and guess what? You're it. That's what's going on here. A living illustration. And we know that many people came to hear him but left him. When he began preaching that he was to go to Jerusalem and die, Gospel of John tells us that many of the disciples left him. So I think we have to understand here that the crowd itself is an object lesson. And the purpose of this living illustration in the parable is how Jesus teaches his disciples, and indeed how he teaches his church, that the preaching of the gospel has assorted and diverse responses to it. I've told you this before. I have two friends who are Reformed Baptist ministers in the Yorkshire Dales. Every Saturday morning, they go to the town square of the town of Ripon and preach the gospel for everyone to hear. And let me tell you, they get all sorts of responses, from people throwing vegetables at them, to police threatening to arrest them, to a few conversions. So you see that the gospel is divisive in that way. Let's go to the parable and see exactly what Jesus says here. The parable that Jesus gives, this parable of the sower, is an agricultural parable, which would have been a common picture in an agrarian society such as Galilee. Most of these people were farmers. And the people of Galilee would visualize it immediately. Many of them would have taken part in such agricultural activity. So Jesus, you know, Whitfield tells preachers, preach the market language. And that's what Jesus is doing. He's preaching the market language to these people who would understand what he's talking about here and the scene that he's portraying. So what is the scene? Verse 5, we see here's a farmer with a bag of seed. And as he walks along, he tosses the seed in furrows in the field. Of course, not all the seed falls into the field, but some of it reaches the edges of a road. happens, the seed is immediately destroyed by being trampled on by people and then eaten by birds. And so, that seed that falls along the roadway on the sides of a person's field, it's very unproductive. Now, another portion in verse 6 of the seed falls on the rock. What this is, is a very thin layer of topsoil which has limestone rock right beneath it. And this type of ground cannot hold moisture, and as the crop grows, it soon withers. It perhaps looks good at first, but it's soon dead and unproductive. I remember when my children and I, we planted a garden in our house in Pennsylvania, and we didn't realize that just below the top surface was this layer of rock. And so we planted all of these carrots, and we thought, well, let's go out. Carrots will be ready. And we went out, dug them up, and they were all flat as a pancake, because as soon as the carrots hit the rock, they spread out this way. They were funny-looking carrots, but we ate them anyway. Okay, so, and nothing else grew in our garden because of that. So, it's quite unproductive. Still, another situation is found in verse 7, and that is, other seed falls into the field, but there are thorns in the field. And what do the thorns do and the weeds? They take the water and the nutrients from the seed and they choke the seed to death. And so the good seed that even falls into the field is dead and unproductive. Finally, what do we see here in verse 8? Some of the seed falls on good soil, it grows and it is productive. In fact, look what verse 8 says, and some fell into good soil and grew and yielded a hundredfold. That's an exceptional yield, a hundredfold. In the agricultural setting of first century Palestine, it's been estimated that an average crop, in ideal circumstances, would yield thirty-fivefold. That is, one seed would bear thirty-five progeny of fruit. But in our text, Jesus is being emphatic. Namely, the harvest is a hundredfold. It's almost three times as much as what a very good yield would be. So this seed is quite productive. OK, now note what happens. Jesus doesn't go right away to interpret the parable. But he does something else. Look at the end of verse 8, going into verse 10. Second half of verse 8. As he said these things, he called out, he who has ears to hear, let him hear. When his disciples asked him what this parable meant, He said, to you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God, but for others they are in parables so that seeing they may not see and hearing they may not understand. Before Jesus interprets the parable, note what he does in the second half of verse eight. And there's another participle here. As he was saying these things, As he was speaking this parable, he calls out to the crowd. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. Jesus is calling out to the crowd right there, calling for a response from those who are gathering to him. And again, we need to highlight the present and immediate relevance of Jesus's parable to his surroundings. This is a call for the people who are right there to reflect on his teaching and preaching. Now, I find it interesting that the first group to respond in verse 9 is the disciples. They are curious. They know that Jesus is not giving them an agricultural lesson, but an illustration about spiritual matters. Obviously, the disciples have ears to hear, but they're lacking understanding of what they have heard. So they ask Jesus to explain it to them. Now, I would argue that verse 10 is the key to the interpretation of this parable and is the key to the interpretation of all the parables that we're going to consider this summer. Verse 10 is critical. Look what it says. Speaking to the disciples. To you, it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God. But for others, they are in parables, so that seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand." Here, Jesus teaches that in the final analysis, the preaching of the gospel divides people into two groups. Although there are a variety of responses to the gospel, Ultimately, there are only two groups. The first one he talks about, those who receive the secrets or the mysteries of the kingdom of God. These are people who, it says literally, have been given knowledge and understanding. That is, their hearts and their minds have been opened by God to know and receive the gospel message. And note that verb in the Greek, has been given its passive. True disciples are recipients and not the source of understanding the gospel. The gospel thus reveals and opens a person's heart and mind to the truths of the mysteries and secrets of the kingdom of God. This term, mysteries, often refers to the truths of God from human reason. It is a Greek term used of the private, secret thoughts and plans of God. It's revealing the very mind of God to people. Then Jesus describes this second group, the rest, the others, he calls them. These are ones who see and hear the gospel message. But the deep truths of it are concealed from their understanding. The deep truths of it do not grip their hearts. Note that Jesus here in verse 10 quotes Isaiah chapter 6 verses 9 through 10. If you have your Bibles, let's turn back there to Isaiah chapter 6. And I want to read verses 8 through 10 Isaiah chapter 6 verses 8 through 10. The context of this passage is the commissioning of Isaiah to preach the word of God to Judah and Jerusalem. Here is the call of Isaiah. Note what his call is beginning at verse 8. Isaiah says and I heard the voice of the Lord saying whom shall I send and who will go for us. Then I said here I am send me. God said to him, go and say to this people, keep on hearing, but do not understand. Keep on seeing, but do not perceive. Make the heart of this people dull and their ears heavy and blind their eyes, lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their hearts and turn and be healed. Here we see that Isaiah's preaching has a primary thrust of concealing and judging. Yes, he is to preach the gospel. Yes, he is to preach the truth. But part of that is to conceal the truth. What a call to ministry. They'll send you on the mission field, but you know, nobody's going to listen to you. You get to go preach the gospel every week. Nobody's going to listen. And the purpose of it is to keep their ears dull and keep their minds dull. The people of Judah will hear, but they will not understand. They will see, but not perceive. Isaiah's preaching will have a deadening and judgmental effect on his audience. And so what we see then is that the preaching of the Gospel, the preaching of the Word of God, reveals to some and conceals to others. It is sharper than any two-edged sword. It is divisive. Do we understand that? Well, let's see Jesus' interpretation of the parable, beginning at verse 11. Here he interprets it. He says, now the parable is this. The seed is the word of God. Great interpretation. The seed, which appears throughout the parable, is the gospel. It's the word of God being presented to the world. And what are the responses? Verse 12, the ones along the path are those who have heard. Then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts so that they may not believe and be saved. The first group, they hear the word of God, but it does not take root in their hearts. Hearing is the most that happens here. It is a shallow attraction. Indeed, understand, when the gospel is preached, Then a spiritual battle ensues. And here the devil is presented as a raging lion at work and attempting to thwart the gospel message. The second group in verse 13 is the seed on the rock. These are people who hear and they have an initial joyous reaction. But in reality, it is superficial. fall away when persecution comes. They fall away when trials come. So is this true, fake? No. In the first great awakening, Jonathan Edwards made a correct distinction between what he called wakening and conversion. He said that some people hear the gospel and they are awakened to the message and they see their sin clearly and some even rejoice over the gospel. They're awakened. But there's no deep rooted conversion. The second great awakening, Asahel Nettleton would preach the gospel throughout an area of New England, and he would see many awakenings. And he would come back through a year later through that preaching circuit to see who had truly been converted. Awakening and conversion are not necessarily the same thing. Then we see at the third group in verse 14, They hear the gospel, but the matters of life choke it. Look what it says there. And as for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear. But as they go on their way, they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature. These people have an excessive concern for earthly affairs. They are earth dwellers in which mammon receives the priority. Again, the gospel has not taken deep root into their hearts. Well, who's the final group? Verse 15. As for that and the good sort, they are those who, hearing the Word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart and bear fruit with patience. These are ones who hear the Gospel and then they hold it fast. They grip it with all of their strength. All their might, they cling to it and they have a firm confidence in it. They take possession of it and they do not allow anything to get in the way of it. They do not allow anything to choke it. And they do it with the right heart. It's in depth, look what it says, with an honest heart, with a good heart, with a heart with integrity. The gospel is thus deep-seated and deeply rooted in this group of people. And note as well, this people is productive. They bear fruit for the kingdom, it says. And they do so with patient endurance. That is, they wait on the Lord, and they wait on His timing. Now, even though there are mixed results, Jesus continues his preaching ministry as he went on through the cities and villages proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. And therein, I believe, lies a great lesson for the church as a whole and for individual Christians, and it is this. We are to share the gospel not because it is easy, and not because it is pleasant, and not because it may be successful, but because Christ has commanded us to do it. He is our Lord and master and we need to obey him. In other words, we do not evangelize because we expect certain results. We evangelize because we have been sent by Christ. We are ambassadors of the great king. We're not. And this should encourage us in our church. We're not to be dissuaded by results. But we're to do our duty as good soldiers of Christ. We need to take this to heart. For as A.W. Pink once said, if a church does not evangelize, it will fossilize. We are not to hoard the gospel. We are to herald the gospel. For the preaching and teaching of the gospel is the common means by which God changes hearts and brings people from darkness into light. Amen and Amen.