The Lord Jesus, of course, was the great master of illustration. Right throughout his preachings in the Gospels, we find illustration after illustration. And really, that's what the parables are. The parables were homely illustrations which gave added illumination and instruction to his preaching. Not everyone was meant to understand the parables. Oftentimes we think of them just as little children's stories, but they were not like that at all. The Lord Jesus told them so that the Pharisees and scribes might be perplexed and not understand them, but he told them so that the understanding of his own people would be illuminated. And the parable of the sower and the seed I think is a classic example. We commenced it just a few weeks ago. It's recorded in all of the synoptic gospels in Matthew 13, Mark 4 and in Luke 8. And in this parable Jesus illustrated the various responses to the gospel. And there's no other responses in 2022. They're the same responses as Jesus found in his earthly ministry. And those responses are indicated to us by the diverse types of grounds upon which the seed fell of the sower that we consider just a few weeks ago. And the Saviour underscored the importance of this parable in Mark 4 and 13, when he basically told the disciples, if you don't understand this one, you'll not understand any of them. So it's important that we do understand the parable of the sower and the seed in Mark 4 and 13. He said, know ye not this parable? How then will ye know all the parables? Now it is our intention to preach through the parables in this winter month. So this is the key to open up the rest of the parables. The scene that he referred to is very commonplace right throughout Palestine. Here we have a farmer, it didn't say it was a big farmer, probably a small holder, a crofter perhaps we would say. And he's walking up and down his patch and he's sowing the seed. And he discovers that the same seed sown by the same man produces different results because it's all dependent upon the ground upon which the seed will fall. Now we know that the master sower is the Lord Jesus Christ. And we know that still today, he uses his servants right across the world, and they're all sowing his seed. And where you find a faithful man of God with the word of God, sowing the seed of the gospel, he's doing exactly what Jesus did in the parable of the sower. But that same seed, to this day, on the ground upon which it is found, still represents the different hearts and lives upon which the seed will enter. The first one is the focus of our attention today, and it's called in Luke 8, 5 and 12, the wayside hearer. The wayside hearer. Oftentimes, up and down the length and breadth of Ulster, you might see the little poster or notice board, and it's the wayside preacher. Well, here's the wayside hearer. And in the interpretation of the parable, Jesus told his disciples, that the hearers, some of the hearers are just like this, wayside upon which the good seed fell. And of course the problem with it was, it never penetrated below the surface. And the seed just lay on the surface. And as it lay on the surface, the Bible says, as Jesus unfolded the story, that the fowls of the air descended upon it and just swooped up the seed before it had any hope of penetrating and sprouting and growing. I'm sure those birds knew this was their favourite fast food outlet. Birds exactly know what they're doing. When I come out, boys and girls, to feed the hens in the morning, there's a whole bunch of crows come and sit over the line because they know exactly when I go in, they'll go down and they'll eat what was provided for others. It's very, very significant. Here we have a description in these birds of the air that fall down and swoop up the seat of the activity of Satan. Satan is busy. Satan is active wherever the gospel is preached, wherever the word of God is sewn, be it in Anaheim, be it in Asia, be it in Africa, be it wherever it is, Satan is busy and he's active. The objective of the activity of Satan is to prevent men and women believing and receiving gospel truth. And wherever you find a faithful sower, you'll find those birds of the air representing the activity of Satan. They're there, they're just ready to swoop down and to catch away the good seed that has been scattered. So what does that activity look like? And how can we actively overcome it? And if we apply the scriptural answers to those questions, then we will know that the wayside hearer, he can be transformed into one that receives gospel truth and will bring forth fruit unto life eternal. I want you to notice, first of all, in verse 12, how active is Satan during the preaching of the word of God? It's amazing. We think of this lovely building, we think of all the lovely people that are gathered in, and we think of the singing, the fellowship, the opportunities that God gives to us. And here in our midst, Satan is working. He's busy. He's active. The Savior emphasized that no sooner Did the seed fall upon the wayside? No sinner. Then, the Bible emphasizes, the usage of the word tells us just right on time, the devil came, the seed was sown, and then, then, just there and then, those fowls of the earth, they descended, and they came with one purpose, to take away the seed that had been sown. So the Savior, in dealing with the first of these diverse types of hearers, He warned his disciples about the activity of Satan. The good seat was plucked away by the devil and by the agencies of Satan as soon as it was put in the ground. You know, there are some people, and regardless of their circumstances, they're always late. There are some people just always late. But the devil's never late. He's never late at church. Some Christians can come late to church on a regular basis, but the devil doesn't come late. And he especially knows when the seed is being sown, what he has to do. How does that seed sown be snatched away? Well, Satan can suggest sometimes the very foulest sins to those who listen to the word of God. those fiery darts of the evil one. Even as you're under the ministry of God's word, they rain in upon us. The devil knows how to rain in those fiery darts. In John's gospel, chapter 13, 26 and 27, we read, at one of the most poignant moments in the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ, when John was lying on Jesus' breast, he asked him, Well, Lord, who is it that's going to betray you? And Jesus answered, he it is to whom I shall give a sup, a morsel, when I have dipped it. And when he had dipped the sup, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon. I've been thinking of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, one of the apostles, the man who carried the bag, not just one of them, an eminent one of them. And Satan suggested to him, put it in his heart and in his mind, to portray the Lord Jesus Christ. I think it's one of the most frightening examples of how Satan can hurl blasphemous thoughts at us. He can put into our imagination unclean suggestions. He can tempt us with unbelief. And even Christians who have stood on the rock of Scripture for years, he comes and he says to them, is it really true? Is it really true? Why? Well, he does all of this, men and women, to distract, to discourage, to divert, to prevent sinners closing in with Christ. He's always on time. He can't be everywhere at once. He's not divine. So instead, what does he do? He sends his minions, he sends his demons to act as those fowls of the air and they are the ones that come and they devour up the good seed of the gospel. We battle, Paul said, against unseen principalities and powers. We battle against them. We battle against the devil in the pulpit. We battle against unseen powers. And the devil will always oppose the place where the gospel is preached and where the good seed of God's word is sown. And that seed is only sown, and he comes to quickly steal it away. What are some of those, say, files that sweep down upon us? Wandering thoughts. Wandering thoughts. It was very difficult. I know it's very difficult to concentrate your thought and your mind, but that's the battle. Preaching is not a passive activity, but neither is listening. Listening is not a passive activity. Those who listen to the preached word have to do it with thoughtfulness and focus and attention. And so you have to prepare yourself to come to the word of God. Sleepiness needs to be resisted. I've heard people say, oh, well, to go to sleep under your minister, you're responsible for it. Well, no, I don't take responsibility for it. If you go to bed late at night, I can't take responsibility if you sleep in church the next morning. But you'll take responsibility for it that you didn't hear some day, the way of God's salvation. Distractions. I think all distractions, you can't help but be in a group of people that there'll be distractions. You just cannot help it, that's part and parcel of it. We're all human beings, we all can't sit as statues. We have children and young people in our midst and we make all types of allowances for those types of things. But distractions should be kept to the minimum. In Romans 13, 11 to 14, this is what Paul had to say. to the Christians of his day. He said, knowing the time that is now, high time to awaken out of your sleep, for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. He was rousing them, he was urging them to be bright and up for the Lord. He said, the night is far spent, the day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk honestly as in the day, not in rioting and drunkenness. not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. I just want to stop there at verse 13. It's hard to credit that he's talking to Christian people, but when he speaks there of rioting, what is he mentioning? He's not mentioning, you know, out in the street opposing the forces of law and order. That's not what he's mentioning at all. He is referring there to reveling. He is referring there to setting aside all moral restraints. Everything's gone. You can just do what you want to do. There's no restraints on you anymore. That's the age we live in. We live in an age of reveling. He also mentions chambering. The very word suggests to us, doesn't it? Moving from one chamber, one room to an extra room, and the undertone, of course, is sexual impurity. And then wantonness, that is licentiousness. Licentiousness. And not in strafing and envying. How do we overcome all of those things? Well, he tells us in verse 14, put on the Lord Jesus Christ. And make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof. There's only one way to defeat the lusts of the flesh. That's to put on Christ. There's only one way, and this is a reference to communion with Christ, to walking with Christ. And Christ alone is the answer to everything we know, but Christ alone is the answer to the deeds of the flesh. And as we put on Christ, then the seed gets below the surface, gets below the hardened surface of the sinner and produces the fruit that's unto life eternal. Look again at the text, and let me suggest to you, secondly, in stealing away the seed, the devil is robbing people of the word. The devil hates the word of God. Verse 12 tells us, he taketh away the word out of their hearts. He taketh away the word out of their hearts. The devil does not want the good seed of the gospel to take root in your heart. That's the very point of it all. He doesn't want to do that. Jesus described the devil in John's gospel chapter 10, that wonderful chapter about the good shepherd, and he described him as a thief and a robber. We know he's a murderer. We know he's a liar. But here he's a thief and a robber. And what a word of warning it is to every soul in the gathering today. The devil comes to rob you of the word of God so that he might rob you of salvation itself. He is a robber, a thief. He comes and he steals away the word of God out of hearts so that they would not believe in the saving grace of Almighty God. And right from under our very nose, right from under the very nose of the preacher, He sends those fowls of the air and they swoop down and they take away, they snatch away quickly the good seed of the gospel. And of course he has long years of practice. He's a master thief. He's a master robber. And no matter how much you try to lock up the doors, et cetera, if you do not put on Christ, we're no match against his cunning. We cannot win this battle. Without Christ and the work of the Spirit of God, we cannot win the battle. The devil's greatest advantage, of course, in the battle is not his own power, it's not his own cunning, but it's the heart and heart of the sinner. Isn't that amazing? It makes it easy for him. It's easy pickings for those fowls to pick up the seed that's scattered on a pathway that's as hard as rock. The hard, sinful heart of man does the devil's work for him. The wayside listener, he only gives, as it were, a superficial hearing to the gospel. It's only at surface level. It's not gone very deep. It hasn't made any impression upon the consciences of those who have listened. And such hearers, they are easy targets for Satan. Now let us not assume that such hearers are those on the outside of the church. Such hearers are those on the inside of the church. The wayside was part of the field. It was the pathway. The pathway upon which the sower would have walked back and forth to get the seed. That was how you refilled the basket. He had to go back again and he had to come back and forth and continue his journey. And some of that seed was scattered upon the pathway upon which he walked. And the more the sower walked upon the pathway, you know what happened? The more compacted, the more hardened, the more difficult it was when some of the seed that was scattered fell upon it. And every time you hear the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and its saving message, I want to warn you, more and more, your heart is becoming hardened to the gospel. Every time it's becoming hardened to the gospel. To the extent that you're just here superficially, you're here in body, but not here in spirit or here in mind. And some of the hardest hearts, Sadly, are those who sit under faithful gospel preaching every week. How many times have some of you heard the story of the cross? About the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ? With the prophet we can say concerning you, it is nothing to you now when you hear about the sufferings of Jesus. You've heard it so often. That saving message does not resonate any longer because the heart has become hard, hardened, and difficult. How every unsaved soul should weep over a hardened heart. A hardness and an indifference. And what does that hardness and indifference do? Does it make you strong? Does it make you a very strong-minded individual? Is that what you're trying to say? Is that what you're trying to portray? I'll tell you what it does, it just makes you easy pickings for the devil. That's all. Notice thirdly with me, in robbing the sinner of the word of salvation, the strategy is very clearly revealed. Verse 12 again, he takes away the word out of their hearts, lest, lest they should believe and be saved. Isn't that just a wonderful gospel summation? Believe and be saved. That's the gospel just in a few words, believe and be saved. And what does the devil do? Well, his rationale is quite plain. He wants to stop sinners believing in order that they will be saved. And I can tell you today, Categorically, that the devil's plan for you is that you'll not be saved. And here we have the wonder of the gospel itself. Because if you exercise faith in Christ, you can be saved. Believe and be saved. I've often gone to those verses in Acts 16, 30 and 31. I remember as a young preacher, somebody phoning me up one day and I did discover afterwards they were in earnest. And they were on the point of suicide. And what was I to say to them? The only words I could think were the words of Paul to the Philippian jailer, just believe and be saved. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. And with nothing new to tell anyone, Be they at wit's end corner, be they at the very depths of despair. It's the same message, just believe and be saved. Believe on Christ, believe on him for the saving of your soul and you will be saved. But his strategy is that that simple message would be taken away from you so that you'll not be saved. In the book of Romans 10 and nine, Paul said to the Romans, if thou shalt believe in thine heart that God has raised him from the dead, now we're getting close to it, aren't we? Thou shalt be saved. Believe what? Believe that he died for you, believe that he rose again for you, and if you believe that he died for you and he rose again for you, you will be saved. That's simple, isn't it? But what's the inverse of it? In the great commission that's recorded in Mark's Gospel 15-16, Jesus said, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Verse 16, he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned. The phrase just simply means to be condemned, as a despiser of the gospel, condemned. As a breaker of the law of God, and the Bible is clear, nothing else but unbelief will damn men. It's not the lack of baptism that will damn men, though we believe in baptism. But it's not the lack of it that will damn men, it's the lack of saving faith that will damn sinners for all eternity. There's only one way to avoid damnation, and that's the way of salvation. Believe and be saved. Boys and girls, that's it. Believe and be saved. I thank God that Satan, to Jesus, must die. He's the victorious one. And he comes today into the midst. And without his divine intervention, it would all be lost. We all would be damned. But he comes and he calls sinners, believe. Believe today and you will be saved. I want you to notice with me in closing how Satan can be stopped and those fowls of the air driven away. What do you do? How do you overcome it? Well, if that seed is to take root in the ground, the ground has to be prepared. It has to be prepared. In the field, the hard earth has to be ploughed. It has to be broken up. It has to be harrowed. There's a whole raft of work has to be done. And there's a work of preparation in the sowing of the seed of the gospel. We call it conviction. We call it repentance. We call it sorrow over sin. The prophet Joel spoke of it in Joel 2, 12, and 13. But now, thus saith the Lord, turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning, and rend your heart and not your garments. The ancient Jews, when they wanted to show sorrow or mourning, they tore their clothes. And of course, you could rend your clothes, you could tear your garments, but it didn't tell anybody what went on in your heart. The equivalent would be here, you could dress in black and you could show to the world outside that you're in mourning, you're in sorrow, but in your heart there could be something totally different. It's not the outside today. that God's interested in. It's the heart that God's interested in. And in your heart, is your heart broken for sin? The law of God has to break the heart. I have to know that I'm lost in order to know that Jesus came to seek and to find the lost. I thank God for the balm of the gospel. And that balm can heal the broken in heart. And what a blessing it is when someone is broken in heart. made to see and feel their need of Christ. If the seed is to grow, then it has to go into the ground and be covered by the soil. It has to be hid, hid from the praying eyes of those fowls of the air that are just ready to swoop down and devour it. And of course the only way in which that gospel seed can be hid is when it goes into the heart and life. Psalm 119 verse 11, again a great memory verse again. Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee. I'm gonna ask all of you today, boys and girls, men and women alike, have you hid the word of God in your heart? Where is it today? Once the word is received, It's the work of the Holy Spirit to make it germinate and to make it grow. This is the mystery of regeneration, the mystery of grace. God takes that simple word of salvation, believe and be saved, and he applies it to the heart and life of that individual, and he gives that individual the enablement, the grace, to do exactly what they've been called to do. to repent and believe the gospel. That's why we sang those wonderful words of Charles Wesley, again today in our service. Verse two reminds us, concerning Christ, the chief subject of the sacred book, thou fillest all and thou alone. Yet there, O Lord, we cannot see unless thy spirit lend the key. We're glad we're living in the age of the Holy Spirit. and he comes and he is the key. He unlocks the door. The knowledge of thyself impart our ear, our inmost soul we buy. Speak Lord, thy servants hearken now. Is there one in the meeting today who will hearken to the gospel? Who will believe and be saved? Is there one who has heard with the inmost soul, the inner ear, the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ speaking to them? Because if that be the case, the Spirit of God has opened the door, has given the key, and is inviting you to come for salvation here and now.