If you have your Bibles that you turn to Luke chapter 8 Luke chapter 8 Luke chapter 8 I've got a message in mind, I've entitled it, Confession of a Saint. And as I walked in and Brother Brandon saw it, he said, hmm. And I said, this confession stuff's getting a little bit old. Last week it was confession of a husband and I shared my shortcomings and I'm going to do it again. Maybe I'll pick on somebody else next Sunday, but right now I'm the one with the bullseye on me. I wanted to share something. Last Monday I woke up and I was really tired and did not want to go to work. I work a secular job. I work at a Christian high school. I teach mathematics to high school. And I was really, really dragging. And it really hit me that, you know, I did not observe a personal Sabbath during the week. Early in the fall or maybe at the end of last summer and around Labor Day, I heard a series of messages on Sabbath, God's design for the Sabbath of taking a personal rest. Now that's really hard to squeeze in for a pastor who works a secular job. When do you do it? Well, for the month of September I was convicted and I worked real hard to open up Saturday just to give myself that time of refreshing that the Lord would have had designed. And I did really good for September. But then last week I woke up on Monday and I realized I didn't do it last week. And then it hit me, I didn't do it in October. So what happened? How could I be so convicted on something? And then within two months, I'm right back to where I started. Well, that brings me back to the sermon I preached last Sunday. Last Sunday, I was pretty much convicted. In that same timeframe, around August in the summer, I presented a lesson talking about the marriage between Rebecca and Isaac. And we noticed that there was a breakdown in the communication. And that's where that marriage got derailed and the deceit happened. We went through all that. And then lo and behold, in the past week, there was a situation where I basically did not do that. I became Isaac Fourfold with my wife. And I thought, wow, I was so convicted of that in August. And here it is two months later and it's gone. So I started thinking about that, and I can go into other areas of my life. I get all fired up about praying, and then all of a sudden I look, and all of a sudden I'm back to where I was started at. And that's the confession I have, is I get fired up about the Lord, but then I don't know if it's the cares of the world, or if it's just my own flesh. I don't know what it is, but I just end up right back where I started. So I started thinking about it, and there's a couple parables that came to mind. There's one that we're going to settle on today. That's the one in Luke 8. But the first one that came to mind was the one of the two sons. There was a man that gave his two sons some command to go out and work, and one of them said yes, and he didn't. And the other one said no, and he did. And I'm thinking, well, when I hear the message on a Sabbath and I hear that message about communicating with my wife, am I that brother that says yes and then don't do it? And I thought, well, no, at least I try for a little while. And the big joke is around our house is Deborah loves when I preach on marriage because she says I'm a great husband for about three weeks. Ah. So maybe next time it'll be four weeks. That's what I'm shooting for. But anyway, as we go forward, then I started thinking about the parable of the talents and the parable of the pounds. Am I that person? Am I the one that goes out and trades and gets tenfold or fivefold? Or am I the scared one that says, yeah, that's right, and then I go bury it? Or am I the one that says, no, Lord, I'm not going to do that? But the one that really hit home that I think applies to me, now I know there's a lot of folks that preach this and most every commentary you're going to read reads the parable of the sower from an eternal standpoint, but I've got no intention of going there this morning. I want to look at it as me. I want to look at that parable of the sower for different areas of my life, and I want to look at it as in different seasons of my life. Okay. So how is it I can get so fired up on being a good communicator with my wife and going in and even though when she's distressed, I will go in and wait in and talk and take the time to be patient and go forward and do that. How is it that I can be so convicted and then within a couple months, it's gone? It's gone. So that's what I'd like to look at. So if you have your Bibles, let's go to Luke 8. Now, I had a tough time because this account shows up in three places. You can find it in Matthew 13, you can find it in Mark 4, but I'm grabbing the Luke account. The only reason I'm grabbing the Luke account is it is one of the more concise ones, okay? Now, again, I would encourage you to go back and read those three accounts. Matthew 13, 1 to about verse 23. Mark 4, I believe it's about 1 to verse 20. And then we're going to pick up on the Luke account, okay? So let me read the parable, and then Jesus is going to explain the parable, and then we're going to try to make some application, unfortunately, to my life. But I would also like to take a look at David's life, too. David is someone we have quite a bit of history of in the Bible. We see him go through the roller coaster. We see troughs and valleys in his life. And I want to put some what ifs in there. OK, because because ultimately the goal is I'm a sinner, I'm a sinner. And I have weaknesses and I fight my flesh. And my life is a rollercoaster, but I pray that my rollercoaster ride is going a little bit higher over time. Amen? I hope it's just not this way. So I pray that my highs are higher, but my lows are also higher too. And the trend is going this way. There's only one person that was straight up with ever out of dip, and that was Jesus Christ. All the rest of us have this flesh that we worry about. We've got a battle within, we've got a battle without, and the odds are stacked against us. So we try to take the steps to try to minimize as much as we can. I've got a hint. Here's one too. One of the strategies, if you feel yourself going down the downhill roller coaster ride, throw out a parachute, slow it down. Okay? That's pretty good strategy. You don't have to go to the trough. You don't have to ride that roller coaster all the way to the bottom of the dip. Okay? So that's where we're going. All right. So let me read this, Luke eight, starting at verse four. 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. I think you can see why I picked this parable versus the other two, because I think those two middle grounds kind of describe me relative to my prayer life. because I get fired up and do it, and then it kind of dwindles off. And then I get fired up to talk and be a better communicator with my wife, and then it dwindles off. Or I get fired up to do whatever it is, keeping a Sabbath and clearing that day of rest. Doesn't that sound strange? You've got to be disciplined to rest? It seems like you've got to be lazy to rest. No, no, we can get so worried and everything's up to us that we take control. No, you gotta be disciplined. God, okay, I've done all I can, this is yours. It takes discipline to do that. What's it say in Psalm 127, 128? 127, verses one and two. Do all that you know to do, then go to bed. Okay, that's hard to do, it takes discipline to do that. Ok, so that is the parable. I do want to make one little comment. If you'll notice in verse 8 it says, other fell on good ground and sprang up and bear fruit a hundredfold. If you read Matthew and Mark's rendition of this It says there's good ground and it brings forth 30 fold some 60 fold and some hundred fold so the only difference between the three accounts is two of them take that good ground and they kind of subdivide it into three categories and that I think that's Pretty good because I don't know if I'd ever did a hundred fold anything. I Maybe 25-fold would be my top. I don't know, I'm just joking. But the other two Gospels describe that good ground in three phases. And a lot of times when I preach that, I say the six ground types. People scratch their head and think what you're talking about. So I'm going to stay with Luke that's got the four ground types. But if you go to those two parables, it does break that out. OK, let's go to Jesus' explanation of this passage. He spends a couple verses talking about why he uses parables, and then we're going to go right into the explanation, which starts at verse 11. OK? So I'm still in Luke chapter 8. I'm going into Jesus' description of this, starting at verse 11. Now, the parable is this. The seed is the Word of God. There's no debate about that. God comes out and says pretty plainly that this is a parable, talking about it, the seed that we're scattering around is representative of God's word. Those by the wayside, are they that hear? We'll talk about that believing and that saving in just a couple minutes. But notice that the word was in their heart. It wasn't water off a duck's back. It did sit there for a little while, but it didn't last very long. Okay. So in my case, let's suppose I hear something being preached and it is a commandment and I say, yep, but before I drive home, I'm not doing it. Okay. In my mind, that's about how long it stayed in me. All right. Second one. They on the rock are they which here receive the word with joy, and these have no root, which for a while believe, and in time of temptation fall away. So my guess is this is a description of some seed that actually sprung up. I think of, my daughter went hiking yesterday on, what was it? Dragon's Tooth, OK, the trail Dragon's Tooth. And it's a very rocky trail. But as you walk up that trail, you'll see where there's cracks and crevices where there's little spurts of green that grow out. OK. And there they're growing out, and they grow up, and they spurt for a little bit of season. But right in the middle of July, when the rain starts petering out and the temperatures start getting into 90, those things turn brown. So in my mind, the seed is there, but it doesn't last. It does take root. But it doesn't have very much root. See, the thing about a plant is it has that root. So when it is not raining, it can go down deep and get water reserves from elsewhere. Well, it has no access to the reserves. So during temptation, it just fades away and it dries out. There's no fruit. Number two, three. And they that fell among the thorns are they which when they have heard go forth and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life and bring no fruit to perfection. Notice that they have fruit, but it's not ripe, it's not edible. Think of an apple tree that grows and the apples are a little bitty green and they never get to the big place where you can actually bite into them. They have fruit, but it doesn't get ripe enough to be any use to people. And how does that happen? This is funny. When I was back in Georgia and I pastored that church outside of Athens, Georgia, about half that church were farmers. And this one particular family had a huge garden and they planted corn. And their third child was a boy. I guess he was kind of an active guy. And they sent him out very regularly in the field to cut the little leaves in the bottom of the stems of the corn. They called them suckers. So his job was to go through the garden and cut off the suckers, okay? and as he got older and he would got into his late teens and he started becoming a little more reliable and didn't have the Unsettled energy that a 12 or 13 year old might have the the corn would grow and he would say dad Who's gonna cut off the suckers and he says don't worry about it doesn't matter What what was I doing all these years? Well what he was doing was what? Dad was just burning off energy is what he was doing giving him a job but the point is is sometimes there are plants where it does make sense to cut off those suckers and Why do you do that? You cut off the suckers so that the nutrition will go to the fruit as opposed to this useless greenery that doesn't do the plant any good. That's an example of that. So when we have our hands into the things of the world, some of our energy, some of our time, some of our resources are put into things that don't really bear the spiritual fruit that we're really striving for in our lives. That's possible too. So that's an example of this third ground type. And then the last one. 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. See, I want to plant the seed and I want the fruit tomorrow. I do not want to have to wait a whole six months of weeding and fertilizing and trimming back the suckers and going into the field and irrigating and fertilizing and breaking up the fallow ground before you ever, I don't want to do that. I want to plant the seed and I want the fruit tomorrow. But, but notice what it says here. It says with patience. Okay. So what I would like to do is now that we're looking at this parable, I want to look at both my situation, maybe that'll put real, but I also want to go look to David. Now, David was a man that had a couple troughs in his life. There's one time specifically where his army was out in battle and he stayed behind and he was walking along the rooftop. And he spied a woman and his admiration turned to desire. And we know that story. And that caused him a tremendous dip in his life. And then towards the end of his life, he was preparing for a battle. And he said, count the people. And of all people, Joab said, Lord, I don't think, he didn't say Lord, he said, David, I don't think that's a good idea. And he says, count the people. And he did. And that caused a tremendous trough in his life. So there's times where he was riding high and he was doing well with the Lord. But he had a couple dips. What can we do with that, even if it's something as simple as trying to be disciplined to observe a Sabbath or trying to be disciplined to go in there and when you know your wife's having a bad day of just going in there and doing the communication and giving her the care and the tenderness and the ministry that she needs at that moment? How can I go forward and do that? What can I do to minimize the troughs? What can I do to make them less deep? What can I do to make them come less often? What can I make them do to be maybe a little lower dip than the dip before? Okay, that's what we're striving to as Christians, amen? Okay. The first thing is, is we have to, and I'm gonna shoot some scripture at you real fast. we have to realize that Paul described our faith and told us it would ebb and flow. Listen to these verses. 1 Corinthians 11.30 says, because many are weak and sickly. He was talking about a church, and some of the folks in that church got away from the Lord. In 1 Corinthians 15, verses one and two, he says, you will be saved if you keep these words in memory. Think about that. If you forget the word of God, it's not gonna do you any good. But if you can memorize them, keep them in mind, they'll do that. In Galatians 1 and verse 6, he says, I marvel that you are so soon removed from the faith. In Colossians 3 and 2, he says, set your affections on high, not below. And in 2 Thessalonians 3, 11 through 15, there was some saints that were getting really off target in their work effort. They were lazy. So Paul is warning us that we will expect dips, okay? Let's go to the next one. Paul told his son in the ministry. These are all references from Timothy. In 1 Timothy 1 and 6, he says, some having swerved, turned aside from the faith. He's saying, Paul's telling Timothy, Timothy, in your congregation, there's gonna be some people that fall away. He didn't say there's going to be some people that are going to go to hell that were bound for heaven. That's not what he's saying at all. He's saying there's going to be times where people in your congregation are going to get interested, they're going to get bored with the gospel, they're going to want to have their ears tickled, they're going to want to hear some new thing, and they're going to be diverted and their attention is going to be, hmm, okay. In 1 Timothy 1.19, he says, some have put away the faith. In 1 Timothy 4.1, he says, some shall depart from the faith. In 1 Timothy 5.12, he said, some have cast off their faith. In 1 Timothy 6.10, he says, some have erred from the faith. What if David, think about it, David had a man like Samuel. Remember Samuel? Samuel was that preacher for King Saul. How many times did Samuel come up to King Saul and saying, mm-mm, mm-mm, that's not the way you ought to go. The Lord's not pleased with that. Towards the end of that relationship between Saul and Samuel, Samuel was scared. He thought Saul was gonna kill him. And he says, Lord, if I tell him that, he's gonna kill me. And God says, don't worry, I got your back. Tell him anyway. What if we had faithful people like that? Okay, think about David. There's David. He's back home. His army's out at war, and he's walking on his rooftop. He's walking along, and he sees this woman, and he says, I want her. What if a servant said, no, I'm not gonna get her? What if? You know what? I wanna surround myself with people that'll say no. Here's something even better. What if he went away, And instead of coming back with Uriah's wife, he came back with David's wife, Abigail. So he knocks on the door, and here she is, and there's Abigail. And he goes, what if he did that? Wouldn't that be fantastic, right? And he's thinking, I don't know what he would have done. But he had no resistance. God told Paul to tell his son in the ministry, be ready to be that man. Be ready to say no to David. Be ready to go in there instead of bringing another man's wife, bring his own wife to him, right? I kind of laugh. I kind of wish that scenario played out and I had my electronic camera to go get his face right when he did that. See the look on David's face, right? He was a good man. He was a man after God's own heart. I wonder if it had just like been coals poured on him when he did. Let's even go a step further. Okay, David commits a sin and he doesn't have a good man around him. And he goes into Bathsheba, and then he finds out that she's expecting child. So what's the next thing he does? He sends word out to Joab. He says, Joab, send Uriah out there in the midst of the battle. And when the battle is really hot, you withdraw from him. What if Joab said, I will not do that to such an honorable shoulder? What if he would have done that? He says, OK, David, I'll do it. But I want you standing there to give the order. I want you to see the look on Uriah's face instead of being safely home in the castle. I want you to. You know what? We need people and preachers like that. That'll say no. Amen. Too often. people will surround themselves with yes-men. Yes-men aren't gonna do you any good. It'll be the no-men that'll keep you from going down those troughs, all right? So the goal is, we know we're sinners, we know our faith will ebb and flow, we'll have periods of doubt in our mind. Well, the goal is one of the things we can do is we can set men around us, and women, right? I'm just not picking on men. I'm thinking about David and myself, so I say men. but we put people around us that'll tell us no. I think that's one way to eliminate a lot of troughs, or at least keep us from going all the way down the rollercoaster to the bottom. Amen? Okay, let's see what else. I want someone when in my life, I want someone that'll, when I'm starting to head down that rollercoaster downwards, I want someone that'll, right in the middle of the downward slide, will come around side with me and kind of slow that thing down. Think about this, okay? In Luke 22 and verse 32, Jesus said to Peter, I'm praying that thy faith will fail not. He says, Peter, you're gonna go down this slippery slope, and I'm praying for you beforehand. I want people like that around me. In Romans 15 and one, he says, bear the infirmities of the weak. When you see a brother heading down there, step in, help him out. Galatians 6, one says, if a man be overtaken in a fault, restore him. In other words, once he's going down there, you jump in. James 5, 19 and 20, brethren, if any of you do err, he says, go in unto him, try to convert him. cut it off, he doesn't have to ride that thing down to the bottom. And then finally, one more, Jude 23, it says, pull them out of the fire. You don't have to grate till he's a crispy critter. Pull him out of the fire while he's still got some meat on him. You know what, I kind of think Jonathan would have been that man. Right? Can you see David and Jonathan going side by side? Do you think all that stuff would have happened if Jonathan was still alive and was still his best friend? I don't think it would have been. I think that relationship between Jonathan and David was so tight. And Jonathan would stand up to his father to say, no, don't go down this slippery slope. I got to think Jonathan would have done that for David too. We need people around us that'll tell us no, that'll come up and stand by us. And when we're on that slippery slope, be praying for us and telling us no and correct us and pulling us out of those fires. Let's keep on going. Did you know the Lord equipped us with tools to fight backsliding? He sure did. In Ephesians 2, 18 through 22, he gave us the household of God. That's what a church is for. In Ephesians 3, 14 and 17, he gave us the word of God. That is something to instruct us. So, you know, when you forget those words, if you're reading them every day, you know what? They'll come back to your memory. You know what else he also gave you? He gave you the Holy Spirit, which grounds you. He gave you preachers, and he gave you the armor of God in Ephesians 6 verse 13 to protect us. The problem is you got to put on all the parts. Satan's looking at you from head to toe. Uh-oh. Embry forgot his helmet. Guess where he's going to aim? The head. James forgot his breastplate. Guess where he's going to go for? He's going to go for his heart, right? He knows our weakness. We got to put on all the armor of God. Yeah. And my favorite is the sword. It's the sword of the spirit. Remember the sword? We think of the sword being an offensive weapon, but it's also a defensive weapon. It blocks just as many blows as it's intended to deliver. And we need the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. We need to have that. Okay. So he quipped us. He knew what would happen and he gave us things to fight that. There is a battle within. This is the child of God. These sayings are from Paul. Paul is the one that was handpicked by God. He wrote most of the New Testament. He wrote more of the New Testament than anybody else. He started more churches. He had more sons in the ministry than anybody else recorded in the New Testament. And this is what he says. He tells us that in Romans 7.23, he says, my members, my flesh, wars against my mind. I've got this little battle going on all the time, like those cartoons when you were real little boys and girls. Yeah, a little angel on one shoulder, devil on another shoulder. I know that's silly in a cartoon, but that's kind of what's depicted in Romans 7. There's this battle going on. Go ahead, do it. And one says, oh, no, don't do it. There's this battle. And Paul's saying, I fight this battle all the time. I'm schizophrenic. No, he's not schizophrenic. He's a mortal being. And he's got this battle going on. It's going on all the time. And I think he talked about this battle in every church epistle he wrote. In Galatians 5.17, he says, the flesh lessens against the spirit. In Ephesians 4.22-24, he says, there's the new man and the old man. They're battling each other all the time. In Colossians 3.9-10, once again, he talks about the new man and the old man. Put on the new man, take off that old man. These are born again, baptized church members that are praying. And he's saying that battle is continuing to go on. So is it surprising that we dip and we forget and we get back to our fleshly ways? So we set up these tools to try to minimize the dips, to recognize them as soon as possible, to make them a little shallower each time we go through them, to bail out as soon as we can. And there's also a battle without. Satan is real. He's real. In Ephesians 6, 11, and 12, it says, stand against the wiles of the devil, against the darkness of this world. In 1 Peter 5, 8, it says, Satan walking as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. 2 Corinthians 11, 14, he says sometimes he disguises himself as an angel of light. And then 2 Corinthians 2, 11, he says, lest Satan gets the advantage. So, was Satan after David? I think absolutely. Amen? Because he knew as David went, so did Israel. The way to bring down Israel was to bring down David. And he was after him and he was working on him in that lust situation. And he was also working, David had a lot of military successes. You know, sometimes success is not good. You have so many military successes, you stop relying on God and you start relying on yourself. And David's gotta go to one last battle. This is at the end of life. How many skirmishes did he fight? And he was so good about asking God, God, should I go into battle? Okay, if I go into battle, how should I go into battle? And this one of these last battles, he says, okay, I got this one. I'm gonna make this plan, count up my soldiers, I'll see what my resources are, and then we'll go whip these guys. And Job says, no, that's not a good battle plan. He says, let's rely on the Lord. He says, no, I got this one. I don't need to get God involved in this one. Satan's got him right where he wants him, amen? Yeah, but I'm fighting the battle for the Lord's cause. Yeah, but you're doing it with your pride. So, all right, so there's a game plan for you and I. Here's the solution. Gave you all the negative, now I'm gonna give you the positive. Number one, let's go back to our parable. We got the four types. We got the hard pan, yes. We got the rocky, we got the thorny, and then we got the good ground. What's the difference? Well, the first thing is, is on that hard pan, we gotta get the discs out. Break up your foul ground. Right? You know, when you run the disco for hard pan, you bust it up, turn it up, turn it over. So that's what we need to do. We need to do that to ourselves. And the next thing is we need to haul away the rocks. You know, when you walk through some of these old fields in Virginia, you're going to see stone walls. Do you know where they got the stones for the stone walls? From the field, right? They go, what should I do with these? We'll make a fence. And it turned out to be a property. So they're going through their fields and they're breaking up the, they're pulling out the stones and they're pulling them off to the side and making a fence. And every time you see one of those stone fences, you think, wow, that's a pretty fence. Think, no, that took a lot of work to kill, a lot of work to clear that field so I can get some crops. And this just happens to be the place to put them and put it to a useful good, but it takes some work. And then finally is the thorny ground, the weeds. Yes. And I don't care if you pull the weeds. I don't care if you cut them off, hit them with a weed whacker. I don't care if you use spray, just get rid of them. Just get rid of them. My favorite illustration is a window box. I love that illustration. So if we put a window box outside that window there, we would raise the blinds, go to the outside, put a window box in, and we fill it with dirt, and we put a tomato plant right here on one side, and the other half we put a kudzu vine. Yes? What happens after about a week? Do we have tomatoes? No, what do we have? We got a kudzu vine that has wrapped itself around the tomato plant and just choked it out. There's no tomatoes there. It's robbed its food, it's robbed its energy, it's robbed its sunlight, it's robbed its very breath. And the funny thing about kudzu is you gotta cut it back every single day. To take a day off is to lose. That's the way the vines work. So we gotta prepare it. And then we gotta feed it, we gotta fertilize it, and we gotta water it, okay? I think David was pretty good at preparing his soil when he was a shepherd all by himself out in the field, amen? There he is, the sheep, it's at nighttime, he gets his harp out, he's singing, he's writing songs to the Lord. I think he's preparing his soil. I think it's a lot harder to prepare your soil when you're the king and all these people are making demands of you and you're running around doing king stuff, doing general stuff, doing economic stuff, doing legal stuff, because that's what he had to do. That part of his life got crowded out. We need to take time to prepare our soil. Well, what does that mean? That's too figurative for me. Well, the first thing I have to do personally is I have to realize that there are areas of my life that's a weakness for me. Now, when I look at David, one of David's main areas of his life, he was a horrible father. He did a terrible job. Matter of fact, he's on his deathbed and he says, with my house, it wasn't so. Eli had a problem like that, Samuel had a problem like that, David had that problem. That was a weakness in his life. Well, what kind of saint was David? Well, if you talked about fatherhood, he was a wayside guy, didn't stick, and he knew it. But when you talked about a repentance, oh man, he was a hundredfold, right? Different areas of his life. Well, that's me. And I know I have a weakness when it comes time to prayer. That's something I've got to consciously make an effort at. And I do know about overloading my schedule and overworking. Okay? All right. There's another thing I have to realize that I have to admit that I struggle in different seasons of my life. Not different areas of my life, but different seasons of my life. You know when I have trouble? When things are out of my control. Man, I'm a different guy if I'm controlling things everything's cool, but if things are starting to get out of my control look out Another time y'all have to just ask my family when I'm focused on a task Tunnel vision right don't bother me That's a season. That's a that's a that's a part of my life that I have trouble with too Well David's was after series of great military successes He started counting on himself I've got to realize I've got every tool at my disposal. I've got all three persons of the Trinity. I've got God's gifts, like the word and the church. I need to have good models in my life and I need to have bold saints. I don't want yes men, I want to put bold saints in my life. I sure wish, just think that chapter of history, with Absalom and him taking over the kingdom and David on the run and all this bitterness that was part of the penalty, part of the curse. What would happen if David had one faithful service, if Jonathan was still alive and he says, no David, I'm not gonna get you that woman. And you start it before the slide ever gets going. That's that's what we need to be shooting for. But you know what? We got to realize that we can't cut off every sin. Sometimes they're on us before we know it. We've got to strive for higher highs and higher lows. We gotta climb out of the trough as soon as possible. As soon as we're recognizing we're in a trough, we gotta get out as soon as possible. And David was good about that. You know, when Nathan came up to David, and he told him that story about a man with a sheep, and this rich man came and took his sheep and offered it up, and David got indignant. He got terribly mad. He says, that's a terrible thing to do. And Nathan says, thou art the man. I mean, David immediately hit his knees and he says, you're right, it's me. Get me out of this trough. He didn't fight and make all the excuses and justifications and say, yeah, buts. You know what a yeah but is? A yeah but is a no. Get the yeah buts out of here. Just be honest, say no. No, God, you're wrong. But you say, yeah, but. So it's kind of like saying, no, God, you're wrong, but you do it politely. That's how we do it, isn't it? Get rid of the yeah buts. Another thing. Here's a tip for you. I want you to be the person I want to have around me. Yeah, but I won't have any friends around me if I be that person. Try it, try it. What's scripture say? The wounds of a friend are better than the kisses of an enemy. Be that person, be that person. Edify in love, pray fervently, be wise, bathe in the word of God, and be a servant willing to come alongside. And if you be those things to people, Lord will bless you with those things back. And then finally, I want you to covet Jesus. I want you to listen to him, read his word. I want you to talk to him, pray to him. I want you to walk with him. I want you to keep him near. I want you to imitate him walking his footsteps. Who was David listening to, talking to, walking with the day he approached Goliath? Huh? I think Jesus and he were pretty tight back then, but that's when he was a lowly shepherd in the field all alone at night. And he had that time to prepare his ground. All right. Who was David listening to, talking to, walking with that evening on the rooftop? Was his soil prepared? And the answer was, no, I don't think it was. I don't think it was. So back to our parable, let's read it one more time and then we'll close. Let me go read the passage we started with Luke chapter eight. This is how the parable reads. Luke eight, starting at verse four. 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 lesson on praying, his lesson on communicating with your wife, his lesson on arrest and dedicating time to the Lord. And some fell by the wayside. And it was trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it up. But some fell on a rock. And as soon as it was sprung up, it withered away because it lacked moisture. And some fell among thorns, and the thorn sprang up and with it choked it. And other fell on good ground and sprang up and bare fruit a hundredfold. And when he had said these things, he cried, he that hath ears to hear, let him hear. I kind of like the earthly application of this parable. I think it way more describes me. Here's the explanation, verse 11. Now the parable is this, the seed is the word of God. The seed is the lesson about treating your wife. The seed is the lesson about dedicating some regular Sabbath time for the Lord. It's about getting on your knees and praying. And the devil taketh away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved. Lest they should believe and avoid all these troughs. They that are on the rock are which, when they hear, receive the word with joy, and these have no root, which for a while believe, but in time of temptation fall away. And that which fell among thorns are they which, when they have heard, go forth and are choked with the cares of the world and pleasures of this life. They've got some apple blossoms. They've got some aspable blood buds. They've got some little bitty, you know, the kind that are perfect for boys throwing at boys and putting in a slingshot, but they don't have the kind that are good for the kitchen table. Never gets there. Nothing you can go to market with the riches and pleasures of this life and bring forth no fruit to perfection to maturity. but that on the good ground are they, which in honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, they do it, and bring forth fruit with patience. Not only do they keep it, they continue in it. May I be better at that. So instead of being the best husband in the world for three weeks, maybe I can be it for four and a half weeks. And maybe next year I can stretch it out to six weeks. That's my goal as a saint. Amen. Sorry, Deborah, you're going to have to face the troughs once in a while because I'm a sinner. But hopefully I make those troughs shallower and less frequent. May the Lord bless y'all. Thank you. ♪ The kingdom of God and His righteousness ♪ ♪ And all these things shall be added unto you ♪ ♪ Allelu, Alleluia ♪ Nothing shall be given unto you. Seek and ye shall find. Nothing shall be given unto you. Allelu, Alleluia.