For over 45 years, Pensacola Christian College has set aside some time each spring semester for Bible Conference. These days of concentrated study and preaching from the Word of God are a time of spiritual enrichment for our students, faculty and staff, and many others who join us for these services. We're pleased to welcome you to the PCC Bible Conference. Matthew chapter 13, let's begin reading at verse number three. The Bible says this, and He spake many things unto them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow, and when he sowed, some seeds fell by the wayside, and the fowls came and devoured them up. Some fell among 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, because they had no root, they withered away. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprung up and choked them. But other fell into good ground and brought forth fruit, some a hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear. Then down to verse 18, 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 catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which receives seed by the wayside. But he that receiveth the seed into stony places, the same as he that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it, yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth for a while, for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended. He also that receiveth seed among the thorns is he that receiveth the word, and the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful. But he that receives seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word and understandeth it, which also beareth fruit and bringeth forth some a hundredfold, some 60, some 30. Let's pray together, shall we? Lord, we love you and we thank you for the opportunity we have to spend a few moments in the Scripture today. Lord, I want to be a help and I pray that you'll fill me with your Spirit and use me to that end in this hour. I pray that you'll do something in our hearts today that will count for eternity. In Jesus' name, amen. We have looked at the Noahic Covenant, and the Noahic Covenant speaks of government. This is the covenant that commands us, don't partake of the things of this world. If you do, there's going to be consequences. Then we looked at the Abrahamic covenant and if the Noahic covenant speaks of government, the Abrahamic covenant speaks of grace. God lays down a sacrifice and then God Himself walks among the pieces and God assures our heart by saying, I've got this. I can take care of your future. Without you doing anything, I can settle the score. And now we move to the New Covenant and if the Abrahamic Covenant speaks of government and the… I mean the Noahic Covenant speaks of government and the Abrahamic Covenant speaks of grace, the New Covenant speaks of godliness. Because it is in the New Covenant that God promises that He will write His words in our heart. It is in the New Covenant that God takes away the heart of stone and replaces it with a heart of flesh. God in the New Covenant actually regenerates us. We have new genes, new DNA, new spiritual acclimation to do the things of God. So this Word that is in our heart, now we have to do something with that Word. We have to allow the soil of our heart to be fertile to receive that Word which God desires to sow there. And this is what is under discussion here in Matthew 13, how do you and I respond to the Word of God? Obviously this is a Bible conference, it's not a Baha'i Gita conference, it's not a Koran conference, it's a Bible conference. This is the very thing that God wants to sow into our hearts, His Word. And the question is, How does this happen and what would prevent it from happening? Let me direct your thoughts to two major ideas today. First of all, let me encourage you to think about a definition of success. A definition of success. It's interesting that there are four scenarios that are presented to us but only one of those scenarios equals success. And that is when the Word of God is sown into receptive soil that receives the Word of God. Now notice what he says in verse 23. He that receiveth the seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word and understandeth it, which also beareth fruit. Now there you have a threefold responsibility with regard to the word of God. First, you're to hear it. That's what you do with your ears. Then you're to understand it. That's what you do with your mind. And then you are to bear fruit with it. That's what you do with your hands. In other words, God wants us to absorb His Word, properly interpret that Word, and then having absorbed it and properly interpreted it, put it into practice. Don't be just a hearer of the Word, but be a doer of the Word. And this is what the Bible says is success. This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth but thou shalt meditate in it day and night that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein because it's when you do that the Bible says that your way will be prosperous and you will have good success. Now it's interesting in our society success is often defined in vastly different terms. If I were to ask you today, is so-and-so successful, you may point to a house that they own, or a car that they drive, or a position that they hold in the community, and then you'd say, oh yes, yes, now that's success. But it's interesting that when God defines success, God defines it on vastly different terms. God's success is measured not by what's in your 401K, not by what's parked in your driveway, not by many, how many rooms or how many bathrooms you have in the mansion that you may possess here on earth. As far as God is concerned, there is only one thing that adequately defines success and that is absorbing the Word of God and putting it into practice. that, according to God, is success. And it may not mean a whole lot. I mean you may be graduating here and you may take an entry-level position at a Christian school somewhere and the salary may be very meager. Staff housing may be very inadequate from what you had growing up. There may be all kinds of things that the world would look at that and they would say, what a waste. How in the world are, why in the world are you, with your brains and your acumen, why in the world are you spending your life that way? But you and I understand that we measure success on a vastly different level than the way the world measures it. Now if God wants you to be in business and God uses you to make a lot of money, so be it. But that in and of itself is not the determining factor of success in the eyes of God. What is success in the eyes of God is hearing the Word of God, understanding the Word of God, and implementing the Word of God. And some people produce various degrees of fruit. Some will be 30, some will be 60, some will be 100. God gives the increase and we trust Him with that. But as long as we are doing what we know that we are supposed to be doing with the Word of God, then we are successful individuals. And how often in life what happens is we climb a ladder of success only to find that it was propped against the wrong wall. We get to a certain level and we find ourselves empty and unfulfilled because we haven't done what God has put us on the planet to do. And also I think this is a great settling of mind because most of the time when we think about the will of God we think about the unknown will of God. But as one famous preacher said, I'm not so much concerned with what I don't know, I'm concerned with what I do know. There's a whole lot in the Word of God that you and I need to absorb and apply. And if we're living according to the principles of God's Word, God will lead us into those unknown areas. But apart from His Word, we'll never have that clear direction to be able to discern good and evil. I'm here to tell you again that the major one, number one reason that you are successful in this world is because you are living according to the Word of God and doing what its principles have to say. This is the definition of success. Which brings us to our second point, which is the destruction of the seed. Now to me, this is absolutely astounding when I read this. Because my whole life, I have devoted myself to the Word of God to the best I know how. And I think of all the wonderful promises concerning the Word of God. In 1 Peter, it is called incorruptible seed. You think about that. Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible. A man may give seed to a woman and if it doesn't germinate within a period of time, no birth will occur. But when you sow the seed of the Word of God, the seed of the Word of God never dies. It's incorruptible and it can bring forth fruit years after the fact when it's sown. It's indestructible seed. That's amazing. Bible says that the Word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and joints and marrow, and is discerner of the very thoughts and intents of the heart. You think about how powerful the Word of God is and how it can penetrate into areas where nothing else can penetrate and expose us for what we are and cause us to do the right kind of things. What a wonderful, powerful tool is the Word of God. We've often quoted it that God's Word does not return void, but it accomplishes that for which it is sent. So when we get to this passage, knowing full well the power of the Word of God, we're almost astonished that he tells us in this passage there are three things that can neutralize the Word of God in our lives. Wow. What are these three things? I mean, if something can cause me to be unsuccessful and cause God's Word to be unproductive in my life, I want to be on guard against those things. One of these things has to do with your past, one has to do with your future, the other has to do with your present. Let's talk about the past first. You'll notice here that he says in verse number 21, yet he that had not rooted himself but dureth for a while for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended. Now here he talks about two things. He talks about tribulation and persecution. Tribulation is circumstances that went bad. Persecution is people who have treated you poorly. Most of us in our life can point to circumstances that were not favorable. We had to endure pressure. Tribulation philipsis. The very word refers to pressure. It was used of squashing a grape to get juice out of it. It was used of a form of execution where you would put a boulder on someone's chest and it would slowly grind them to death. It was also used of millstones going against each other to separate wheat from chaff. And all of these pressures of life. You and I feel tribulation. We feel philipsis. We feel pressure. And then there are people who just cause problems. They cause consternation. They ridicule us for our stand. And all of us can point to things in our life where we had circumstances or people that drove us crazy. Do you know that bitterness can very easily get in in those circumstances? And when bitterness creeps into our life because of unfavorable circumstances or unfavorable people, when that happens, you and I neutralize the effect of the Word of God in our lives. Have you ever known somebody who one thing happened into their life and they can't get past it? It jaundices everything. I have a friend, he's one of the most talented people you'd ever meet. He is, oh man, his skill set is way beyond mine, light years beyond mine. He's so good at so many things. But there was one thing that happened in his life many years ago, and it doesn't matter what you bring up, it'll go back to that event, it'll go back to that day, it'll go back to that time when he was treated dog dirty and he can't get past it. You could bring up Fritos, and he would say, yeah, you know, I remember eating Fritos the day that happened to me. And just everything goes back to that time in life. Was it a grade that you didn't deserve that was lower than you anticipated? Was it a teacher who you just couldn't get past? Was it an administrative decision from student life that you just have not been able to get past in your life? Is it a breakup within your family? Is it a sibling that's gone awry? Is it a school bill that could not be met? Is it a semester off when something happened that is inexplicable? What is it that is jaundicing your life that is a root of bitterness that springs up in your life and thereby many people are defiled and all kinds of people in the world are splashed with your bitterness? And the Word of God is completely neutralized in your life because of some tribulation or some persecution, something that happened in your past that you just can't shake. Years ago there was a book that was published called Games Christians Play. And in the book, they said that all you have to do is develop one thing that happened in your life and hang on to it, and no one will ask you to do anything. For example, let's say that your pet ocelot died, the book said. And they come and say, hey, could you work in the nursery? And you say, well, I would love to, but my pet ocelot died. Oh, would you like to work on the bus route? Well, I'd love to, but my pet ocelot died. Just use that five or six times. And then the next time your name comes up at a board meeting, people say, oh, no, we can't. Yeah, remember dead ocelot. Oh, yeah, yeah. And that's the way our life is sometimes. We are just hanging on to something that's happened in our past, and we look in our rear-view mirror all the time, and we drive off the road. When I was in the Woodville Elementary School in Mansfield, Ohio, they had this thing called obstacle course tag. They would send a kid through the obstacle course, and then 10 seconds later, they would send another kid to catch the first kid. And I was a very slow runner. I mean, I run a five-year, 50-yard dash. I'm not very fast. So this second kid is coming after me and I hear his footsteps and I turn around to see where he's at and turn back around and face first straight into the Geodome. My eye gashes open, blood's spraying everywhere, and that canceled P.E. class for that day. And they rushed me to the emergency room, they shaved my eyebrow, and they put seven stitches there where my eyebrow used to be, and the next day was school pictures. So in my second grade picture there's seven stitches where an eyebrow ought to be and from time to time I'll pull that out just to remind myself of how dangerous it is to look behind you. You can't spend your life constantly sulking in things that have happened in your past when persecution or tribulation or whatever is happening in your life. You have to find some way by the grace of God to get beyond that because if you do not the Word of God will become neutralized in your life. The second thing that he gives is not only something with regard to the past but he gives something with regard to the future when he talks about the deceitfulness of riches and the cares of this world. Look what he says in verse number 22, but he also that receives seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word and he becometh unfruitful. Now that word unfruitful, that's just another word of saying barren, unproductive. Isn't this interesting? If we could paraphrase this, this is the idea he meant well. Is there any more bigger slam in all the world than he meant well? Wouldn't you hate to have that on your tombstone? He meant well. That means you're a complete doofus but you're trying. He meant well. It's interesting that he puts this term on fruitfulness, barrenness. He meant well in a context of the deceitfulness of riches and the cares of this world. In other words, you and I could be so consumed with making a living that we forget how to live. And there are many people who one day will stand before God, and they spent their whole life trying to put food on the table, and pay the mortgage, and balance the checkbook, and everything in their life was concerned with getting the kids to the doctor, and making sure that the kid's teeth are straight at the orthodontist, and doing all the things in life that you have to juggle with your plate, and in the midst of juggling all the activities of life, the cares of life, and the deceitfulness of riches, and trying to make just enough money to survive, that we have lost sight of what is really important. And so we are trying to be productive and useful citizens and in the process when we stand before God we have found out we're not useful at all. We are completely inoperative, inert, barren. What a tragic state of affairs that would be. How often in ministry people have told me, pastor, I'm moving out of the area and I'm gonna, I got this job and I'm going here. And why are you going there? Well, there's more money there. And I think that I can make a better living. I think I can help my kids more. I think they can get a better quality education here. And all these factors come into play. Have you thought about a church there? Oh no, no, no, no. I haven't even looked into that. Surely there'll be a church there, surely. They don't even think about the spiritual side of the equation. It used to be that parents used to drive up with bombs of station wagons with mufflers falling off of the car to keep their kids in Christian school. Now they drive up in a Navigator to tell you why they can't make their Christian school payment. And the problem is, is that the deceitfulness of riches and the cares of this world have choked out what is really important in the lives of our families. So now, any time overtime is offered on a Sunday, or we get time and a half on Sunday to work, the effect of God's Word in our family and what can happen in our family through the Word of God, that is completely neutralized because, I say it again, we are so consumed with making a living that we don't know how to live. And I wanna tell you, this is a real fear that I have for your future, that you would get out of here and not really go wicked and blow a gasket. but just be so consumed with making money and living the American dream that your kids turn into a nightmare. The future is very important on how you approach finances versus the word of God. Which brings us to our final point, which has to do with the present, and that is just callousness. Notice he says in verse 19, when anyone heareth the word of the kingdom and understandeth it not, then come with the wicked one and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which received seed by the wayside. And here's our covenant bird. Here's the invasion of the bird snatcher. He comes and He takes the seed away. Why did He take the seed away? He took the seed away because it never penetrated the surface because we were callous to it. We were too hard to receive it. Let's face the facts, ladies and gentlemen. In the four years that we are here, we'll hear more sermons than some people will hear an entire lifetime. Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, Sunday school, missions conference. Bible conference, I mean, how many sermons will we hear? And yada, yada, yada, there they go again. And what happens is we become so bound to it that we're bored with it and it never penetrates our heart and it lays on the surface and the devil snatches it away. Now you think about this, here's an indiscriminate amount of seed that's sown. over the top of this soil and it just lays on the surface and the devil snatches it away. You think, oh, it's not that big a deal. It was only a seed. I mean, a bird doesn't eat a lot. If we want to say that somebody's not eating a lot, we say, man, you eat like a bird. A bird is not like, you know, it doesn't eat like a, you know, like a huge mammal does. Just a little snatch takes it away. We think, oh, that sermon's not important, I'll hear another one next week. Oh, that sermon's not important, I'll hear another one in a couple of days. And the bird takes it, takes it, takes it, one seed at a time, because of the callousness of our heart. Years ago, there was a freighter that crashed into a riverside mall in New Orleans along the Mississippi River. 116 people were injured in that accident as that freighter crashed into that mall along the riverbank. They began to discover why the freighter accident occurred, and here's what they discovered. They discovered that the engine died, so they couldn't steer it. And the reason the engine died was because the oil wasn't effectively filtered. And the reason the oil wasn't filtered is because the maintenance guy didn't do what he was supposed to do and replace the filter, and the filter was less than a dollar. Just one small glitch, something under a buck, and yet hundreds of lives were affected because somebody didn't mind the store. Eh, it's not that big a deal. What's one oil filter? Well, one sermon or one seed of God's word, you think about it, you reap what you sow, you reap after you sow, you reap in proportion to what you sow, but you also reap more than you sow. You think of one grain of corn, how many kernels are on one good ear of Kentucky corn? You always reap more than you sow. And you say, oh, that's just one sermon. You don't understand that you could sow one sermon and the effect of that one sermon could be exponentially great in your life provided you don't let that dirty bird take that seed away. So the question then we have to ask ourselves, okay, we hold in our hands the word of God. God has written instructions to us. Now, this is a powerful document. There's no more powerful document in all the world than a copy of the Word of God. And we have to decide in our hearts and minds and lives, are we going to allow this to be sown into our heart and to bring forth fruit? Are we going to hold on to something in our past? Are we going to get sidetracked by all the lights of the future? Are we going to become callous to it in the present? And if that happens, how sad the fate, because it takes the most powerful tool in the world and it renders it inoperative. How tragic to come to a Bible conference and not allow the Bible to have fruit in our life. You've been listening to a Bible Conference message from Pensacola Christian College. You're welcome to pass this sermon along to others. Please don't charge for it or alter it without written permission from Pensacola Christian College. For additional information about PCC, visit us online at pcci.edu. Pensacola Christian College, empowering Christian leaders to influence the world for Christ.