We're going to look this morning at what our Lord began as His longest parable in the Gospel of Mark. You say, how can you find Christ's longest parable in the Gospel of Mark in the book of Genesis, chapter 3? Well, you listen closely and you'll understand it. Because what Christ was talking about is, what are the responses that we give when we hear God speak to us? And I want you to think about that this morning. What is your response when God speaks to you? When God speaks, each of us, whether actively or passively, we respond to Him. Look in Genesis chapter 3, in verse 8. I want to show you just a few of the responses that the Bible records when God spoke to people. And then I want you to see, as we get into Christ's parable, how our Lord Jesus Christ categorized those responses. And by the way, there are three bad and one good, three that failed and one that succeeded. And these responses are very much fitting into those that Christ will define. Verse 8, and it says, and they, and that is our forefather and our foremother, Adam and Eve, heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden. Now that's interesting. God is a spirit, but somehow he, in his creative interchange with them, they could hear Him coming. Maybe it was the sound of a trumpet, whatever it was. There was a sound accompanying God as He came through the garden, walking in the cool of the day. And the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God. What was the response that Adam and Eve made when God came to talk to them, when they heard Him coming, when He was speaking to them? What was their response? They fled. They hid. They wanted to get away from Him. You know, that's a response to God that even this morning some of you practice. You avoid direct contact with God's Word when He speaks. Turn over a little bit further to Exodus chapter 5. I want to show you another response because this is Pharaoh This is one of the great kings of the mighty dynasties of Egypt, one of the most ancient of all the world empires. And in Exodus 5, Pharaoh has a response when God speaks. It's also a similar response that I've seen in my lifetime to people hearing God's word. And it says in verse 2 of Exodus 5, but Pharaoh said, who is the Lord that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? And if you'd have been there that day, I'm sure that there was a little laugh and a little cynical, sarcastic tone in his voice as he said, who is the Lord? I'm the Lord of Egypt. He was the God of Egypt. Pharaoh was the reigning God that the people worshipped among the other pantheon of gods. And when God spoke to him through the prophet Moses, Pharaoh went, who's God? I'm God. Nobody's going to tell me what to do. Nobody's going to intersect with my life and change me." And he laughed. That's a response. Turn over to chapter 20 of the book of Exodus. God spoke again. He speaks many times. He speaks even today through his word. Let's back up. Instead of 20, go to 19. Exodus 19. And how about verse 16 of chapter 19? Chapter 20, as you know, is the Ten Words of God, the Deca-Loga, the Ten Words of the Ten Commandments. But before God spoke those, there's a little preamble to it, He comes down and He gets ready to speak at the top of Mount Sinai. And that's where we pick up in verse 16. So it came about on the third day, when it was morning, that there were thunder and lightning flashes, and a thick cloud upon the mountain, and a very loud trumpet sound, so that all the people who were in the camp trembled." Now, what was all this trumpet and thunder and all? Well, it's the Lord, verse 18. It says, "...the Lord descended upon it," that's Mount Sinai, "...in fire, and its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked violently." What was the response of the children of Israel when God spoke on Mount Sinai? Well, it says it right there in verse 16, the last couple words. Every single person in the camp trembled. Why? Because when you really know it's God speaking, and when you really know how powerful He is, and by the way, they did know how powerful He was, they saw Him decimate the mighty army of Pharaoh. They saw Him annihilate all of the wealth, the crops, the livestock. They saw him confound the Egyptian magicians. They saw him split the Red Sea. And it wasn't a mud puddle that the wind blew it back. It was the depths of the sea that God cleared away and made dry land. I always thought, that's the greatest miracle of all, that the mud that probably could have been 20 or 30 feet deep was hardened and dry in an instant when the children of Israel walked through the mighty power of God they knew. And they knew all of that power when they got to the foot of Mount Sinai and they heard that blast of a trumpet and they saw the quaking like a volcano and they saw the clouds and the lightning flashing and the thunders pealing. They tremble. That's a response. I've seen people tremble when God speaks. Keep turning in your Bibles to Numbers 21. We're going in order, so if you get lost, just keep flipping the pages and you'll come to that. That's the fourth book of the Bible. Numbers 21, verses 8 and 9 is another response to God speaking. And this is an amazing one. This is one Christ parallels to salvation. And so it's very important we look at it, because in verse 8, Then the Lord said to Moses, Make a fiery serpent, set it on a standard, and it shall come about that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he shall live. What a fascinating part of the scripture. What's happening is God's judging the children of Israel for their murmuring and complaining and grumbling and griping and their insolence against him. So he sends these fiery serpents and they went under the tent and in everybody's sleeping bag and everything else were biting the people indiscriminately and they were dying of the venom of the fiery serpents. Now, I've never been bitten by a snake, but I sure have seen a lot, and I don't even like the sight of them, let alone thinking of one, you know, biting me. But these were fiery, deadly serpents. And it was a portrait of sin. Sin is deadly, and it's incurable, and these people were, it was incurable, their bites that they got. But look at verse 9. And Moses made a bronze serpent, set it on a standard, and it came about that if a serpent bit anyone, any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived. Wow. Look and live. My brother lived. Look to Jesus now and live. That's what the hymn writer had in mind. And what it is, is God spoke, and when God spoke, anybody who by faith responded and looked, they didn't die. That's a great portrait, isn't it, of the Word of God. If someone will listen to the Word of God and allow it to cause a reaction in their life of obedience, they will be saved. That's a response to God, Israel, at least the dying ones, looked. Other responses in Jeremiah 15, it says, when Jeremiah heard God speak, he said his words were found and he ate them. He feasted on the Word of God. When God spoke, it wasn't just another voice, it was that which fed his soul. And people that have come to realize that this book is God speaking, when they open its pages, it feeds their soul. And there are a lot of empty-souled people And they fill that emptiness, that void, either with things, you know, boats and cars and, you know, vases, and then you have to get a table to put the vase on, and then you've got to get, you know, something to put the vase on the table on, and carpets put under, you know, it's just things on things, and that's what Christ was talking about, piled up things. Or they fill that void in their heart with alcohol or immorality or some drugs or some proud accomplishment, but everybody has a little emptiness there. And Jeremiah, when he found his heart was empty, he feasted on the only thing that could continually fill it. Jeremiah 15, 16, Thy words were found, and I did eat them, and they were the joy and rejoicing of my heart. You know, another one, if you want to turn there, is Daniel 5. That's near the end. We're going back toward Mark, so you might as well start turning that way. And if you know where Daniel is, It's right after the middle, Psalms, Proverbs 2, Exodus, Song of Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel. There it is, right up there. It's about 12 from the end of the Old Testament. Daniel chapter 5. And I always remember the fifth chapter. When you have to learn chapter content, you kind of get little symbols to help you. And the fifth chapter reminded me of five fingers. And this is the handwriting on the wall, when the hand came of God and wrote on the wall. Chapter 5. And Belshazzar, the king, was there at this big orgy. Now, how would you like to have your orgy interrupted by God? Wouldn't that be awful? Well, it was for Him. And it says in verse 9 of chapter 5, Then King Belshazzar was greatly alarmed. His face grew even paler. That means he'd kind of gotten white with fear looking up at this hand. we know from the excavations that that place must have had 50 or 60 foot high walls, this banqueting hall, blue tiles up most of the walls and the top part in white plaster. And that amazing setting with all the hundreds of people rioting and their orgy and their drinking and everything that was going on, in the middle of it, God interrupts with a hand. And that hand pokes in the plaster and starts writing Hebrew radicals, the letters. They didn't have any vowels back then, they just had consonants, and those Hebrew consonants. And he writes up there on the wall, and then the hand disappears. And the reaction is, in verse 9, this king was alarmed Greatly his face grew even paler and his nobles were perplexed." Now that's instant sobriety, right? These guys were drunk and they just, they had the alcohol scared right out of them. They just looked up and they were alarmed and they were really thinking and looking up. And that's another response when God speaks. God spoke by written words. I've seen a lot of people sober up to the message of God. It scares them. It scares them a lot. But then it kind of wears off. And that's another response. An alarmed, greatly fearing of the judgment of God. I've seen people hold on to the front of the pew that they're standing behind and they hold on tight and they're scared to death. But then it goes away. Because while you hear his voice, don't harden your heart because he won't always speak. But that's a response. But keep turning to Matthew 14. Now we're in the New Testament. Now all of you can find that. New Testament, Matthew 14. And verse 33, because Christ spoke again. And a whole different group, there were 12 captives in a boat in a huge storm. And you know, it's one thing to be scared to death when there's a storm outside your boat. But you know what's even more terrifying than having a storm that could endanger your life and capsize the boat and you could drown in the huge billows and waves? You know what's far more terrifying than that? To have the person that can talk to the water and have the water instantly calm and become like a glass in your boat. You know, it's better to have the storm outside. than to have the one that can talk to the winds and waves in your boat. And there's a definite response that these men give. Look at verse 33. And those who were in the boat, look at their response, worshipped him. You know, worship, we've lost a little of the meaning. Worship literally means to proscuneo, to fall down, put your face down. It's just a It's just a descriptive word of such reverential awe that you just can't, you know, when people just, you know, they just act like, you know, it's so great, and that's one thing, but where is the awe that comes of worship? And every time in the New Testament, and many times in the Old Testament, that anybody gets near God, they all have the same response. Joshua, flat on his face, putting his mouth right in the dirt. Daniel, flat on his face. The Apostle John, flat on his face. And the Lord had to pull him up. He was so overwhelmed when Christ spoke. And when he spoke to the winds and the waves and they stilled, these twelve in the boat fell on their faces. That's a response when God speaks. Now turn to Mark chapter 4. We're going to spend an awful lot of time there as we look at Christ speaking because, as you know, our Lord Jesus Christ had done a lot of new stuff. I like new things. I'm sure you do too. Most people love new things and, you know, we like to get a new this or that or go a new place on vacation. Who wants to go the same place every year, right? Whatever. Christ did a lot of new stuff and the people didn't like the new things that he did. You remember in verse 13 of chapter 3, he called a new group of people to proclaim his word. And they weren't the normal people. They weren't the scribes and the Pharisees. They were these fishermen and these peasants and these unschooled people. And he did that, and then he talked about a new kind of forgiveness, starting in verse 20 down to 30. And then, verse 31, we looked at last week, he really did something new. He said there's a new group of people God's working with, and it's not national, it's not Israel, it's not religious, it's not the established religion. He said it's a brand new family of people that, verse 35, are doing the will of God. Now I'm sure everybody was chattering about that. They couldn't figure out what he was talking about. And so the word had gotten around and it just got around so much that verse 1 of chapter 4 says, he began to teach again, only this time he leaves the house he was in. He was in a house in Capernaum. People were hanging in the windows and sitting everywhere that they could sit. And he went out by the seashore. And verse 1 says, such a very great multitude gathered before him that he got into a boat in the sea and sat down, and the multitude were on the seashore on the land. And so what happened was, to accommodate the most people to hear him, he got in a little boat, pushed out from the water so that nobody would crowd him and hinder his speaking, and there on a little boat just away from the water, this amphitheater setting, The Holy Land is just so beautiful. The Sea of Galilee glistening behind him and the green slopes coming down just like an amphitheater around him. And Christ began to speak. Now everybody had come because he was teaching and he was building and he said, I have a new family. Do you want to know what the new family is? Let me tell you. And he starts telling them and it says he was teaching them many things in parables and was saying to them in his teaching, listen to this. What's a parable? Parabolae, to throw alongside. It's taking an earthly, common sight and putting theological truth alongside of it, so that by looking at something so common, it would reinforce and deeply impress the mind with the spiritual truth. That's what Christ was doing. And he said to them, Behold, a sower went out to sow. In verse 4, it came about that as he was sowing, some seed fell beside the road, and the birds came and ate it up. And the people were envisioning this, they could see it. Some commentators say that up on the hillside, most likely all around the Sea of Galilee, it was very agricultural, maybe there was a man throwing seed out. If not, they all could picture it because that was a part of life that they were used to. And some seed, verse 5, fell on the rocky soil, and immediately it sprang up, because it had no depth of soil. And after the sun had risen, it was scorched, because it had no root, it withered away. Another seed fell among the thorns, and the thorns grew up, and choked it, and it yielded no crop. And the other seed fell into the good soil, and as it grew up, it increased, and it was yielding a crop, and were producing thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold. And he was saying, He who has ears to hear, let him hear. That was a simple parable. In fact, a lot of you could probably recite it from memory. But think about what Christ was saying. Just briefly, think about a land that had been continuously inhabited for 1400 years. Joshua came in, liberated the land in 1400 BC. He gave it out by tribal allotments and a primarily agrarian, agricultural, farming lifestyle grew up. Some herding, some sheep and cattle and goats and all, but primarily agriculture. And they all had their tribal allotments, and the family got this part, and they divided among the sons, and the son would have children, he would divide it, and they would divide it, and it wasn't long before a couple hundred years went by, and the whole land was agriculturally divided up. If you've been over there, you know that they had these long fields, And these long fields would have walkways between them. And if you can imagine after 1,400 continuous years, except for 70 years of captivity, of inhabitants in that land, and habitation of that area, you can imagine that it was pretty well established, the fences, the markers, the dividers, the fields. And what Christ was saying is, as the man came along sowing the seed, He was just throwing it along and some of it fell on that pathway that had been trampled for hundreds of years. And it was just like cement. And the birds had been watching for a long time and they knew that every time they came out to sow, just like your garden, the crows come and eat your corn away. So the birds came and pecked away at all the seeds that didn't fall down into the dirt, but fell on that strip. And others, it says, It fell on the rocky ground, verse 5. Well, if this land had been tilled for hundreds of years, what are the rocks? You mean these guys are so lazy they left all the rocks? No. It's not talking about pebbles. The rocky ground was the reality that in Palestine, under, just deeper than the plow could go, which was an oxen-pulled piece of sharpened wood, just under that, perhaps a foot and a half deep, two feet deep, was the outcroppings of limestone that cover the land of Israel. Sometimes they surface, and they are big rock portions that come out of the ground, but most of the time they're under the surface. And sometimes when they come up so close under the surface, it had a very interesting effect, a greenhouse, a warming effect, because the sun would come down, heat up the soil, and there was not a lot of depth to that soil, and so it would hold the heat, and it would also hold the moisture for a while. And so, like it says here, It says that the seed would spring up. It was kind of like putting it in a little greenhouse. But after a while, when the sun got hotter and the summer bore on, the water would evaporate. And that soil that was gently warm would become dry as the desert and it would kill that seed. And then it says a little bit further, they come to the thorny, verse 7, the thorny soil. What that is, is just the, again, these fields have been there for centuries and And sometimes when they're not careful in clearing them, a lot of those people used to just burn off the fields. And what they didn't realize is you burn it off and then you plow it, and if you don't pull out the roots, the perennial roots would come back. And this was a field portion that was infested with the perennial roots of some of these very huge, thorny weeds. of Palestine. Then finally there's a good soil in verse 8. Well, look at verse 10. As soon as he was alone, he left the seaside, his followers along with the twelve began asking him about the parables. And they said, what are you talking about? Why were you telling us? We all know about agriculture. What are you telling us about that? And he said, to you it's been given the mystery of the kingdom of God. He said, I'm going to explain to you what I was talking about. Those who are outside get everything in parables, in order that while seeing, they may see and not perceive, and while hearing, they may hear and not understand, lest they turn again and be forgiven." You say, what a mean thing to say. Well, he was just quoting Isaiah 6-9. And God said that when the promised one would come, he would speak truth. And when he spoke truth, the same sun that would harden the clay would soften the wax. And he said, the people I speak parables to, some I speak the truth, and it hardens their heart and they don't get it. And others, it softens their heart and they get it. And he said, but I'm going to tell you the mystery, and he does. Look at verse 13. He said, do you not understand this parable? And how will you understand all the parables? He said, let me explain it to you. The sower sows the word. Now Matthew tells us, Jesus said, I'm the sower. So it's Jesus that's sowing. And the seed that he's sowing is the word that he spoke. So what Christ was doing was, actually, at that moment when he gave the parable, he was doing what he was saying. He was throwing out the word of God. And as he threw it out, on the group of people that were listening to him, Those were the ones who are beside the road, verse 15, where the word is sown, and when they hear, immediately Satan comes and takes away the word which has been sown in them. This is the hard, or the unresponsive ones. They're the ones that maybe they've heard it many times, or maybe other things have hardened their lives, and when the word of God comes, it just sits on the surface, and they never respond to it, and they hard-heartedly, basically reject it. And what happens? Satan comes along and swoops the things which were sown away. In the first century, and today, there were people responding to the Word of God that way. And I'll tell you a little secret. This morning, there are people who have heard, and you might even be here this morning, hearing the Word of God, and the Word of God is God speaking, and when God speaks, it just sits on your ears. And for whatever reason, either somebody disappointed you, or some college professor put doubt in your mind, or you saw some great Christian leader fall, but whatever, Satan has hardened your heart to the Word of God, and it won't even come in. Well, that's the first response to the Word of God. The second, Christ says, is in verse 16. And in a similar way, these are the ones of whom the seed was sown on the rocky places, who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy, and they have no firm root in themselves, but are only temporary. Then, when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately they skandalon. They fall away. They scandalize. It scandalizes them. Have you ever met people like this? they have an immediate emotional response to the Word of God. It's kind of like if the vacuum cleaner man comes to their house and dumps some dirt on the floor and sweeps it up, they go, oh, I've got to have that vacuum cleaner. And if someone hands them a little something at the store to sample, they've got to buy that. And if someone tells them they need this, they're just the people that just, they emotionally respond to everything. And they hear the gospel and they say, ah, it sounds great to me. What do I have to do? Just tell me. I want to pray. Come forward. I'll do that. Let me pray. I'll get baptized. Just tell me what to do. as long as there's no cost. But, as soon as there's a cost, they don't have a root. It doesn't go to their very soul. It is not affecting their will. And it says, as soon as there's any persecution or affliction or someone laughs at them, or there's a price to pay, because of the Word, verse 17 says, immediately, they're gone. I'll tell you, I've seen that so many times, it just breaks my heart. In these years of ministry, I've seen people come forward and they just glow. They say, oh, that's what I've been waiting for all my life. You find out that they just did the same thing, you know, at the Seventh-day Adventists, and they're down at the Jehovah's Witnesses next week, and who knows, they'll be at the Mormons the next week. And they just love everything, and they have no discrimination, they have no discernment, they have no comprehension, and spiritually, they have no root in their heart. And that's why the Scriptures tell us to be very careful to really examine people. and to call them to examine themselves, if they're really in the faith, because if they just have a shallow emotional response, and Christ said this shallow soil has no retention, no root, they're just shallow or superficial in their response. Well, the third soil is the crowded soil, and it says in verse 18, and others are the ones whom the seed was sown among the thorns, and these are the ones who have heard the word and the worries of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things, enter in and choke the Word, and it becomes unfruitful. The crowded life, the life that is worldly, the life that the Word of God comes and sits beside other very deeply rooted things, and those things are not rooted out, And so they both try and grow up together and the deeply rooted worldliness and the care for riches and the desire for things rise up and choke out the Word of God. And then finally, those are the ones, verse 20, on whom the seed was sown on the good ground. And they hear the Word and accept it and bear fruit 30, 60, and 100 fold. What's the conclusion? And this is just the beginning. We're looking at what Christ taught about salvation and we shall look again in the weeks to come. But the last thing I want you to remember as we go today is Jesus Christ said in verse 20 that the good ones, the soil that responds, the ones that believe, the ones that the Word of God truly has enduring results in, is only one out of the four. It's only one soil out of the four. And it's the soil that verse 20 says, the last line, and bear fruit. Who's in Christ's family? One type of people. Not the people that run into church and listen, and they leave the same way they came in. Not the ones that have a quick, shallow, superficial, emotional response. Not the ones that say, boy, that looks great to me, I'm not going to give up my immorality. I'm not going to give up my worship of things. I'm not going to give up my idolatrous practices. I'm not going to give up anything. I'm going to add Jesus to my life. Not any one of those three. It's the one that the Word of God enters into, and in that supernatural work of salvation, the thorns are rooted out of the life, the great undercroppings of subterranean rocks, whatever they might be, are plowed away, and that is good, fertile ground, and the Word of God has fruit. Do you want to know if you're a Christian or not? Is there any evidence of fruit in your life? Every time Christ preached a sermon about salvation, he talked about an outward response in the life of fruit coming out of that life. the fruit of righteousness, the fruit of the Spirit, the fruit that tends toward eternal life. Jesus Christ said, the good soil is the soil that bears fruit. You say, yes, but I'm not as good as Elder so-and-so. Well, that's why he puts in some 30, some 60, some 100. You know, you and I might only be a 30-fold. You might be a 60. You might be a 100. But if you're born again, God is bearing fruit in your life. If there's no fruit, there's no life. If there's no life, there's no hope for eternity. Those are the people that are in God's family, the ones that bear fruit. Let's close for a word of prayer this morning. Father, I thank you for our Lord Jesus Christ, so vividly, so pointedly, so directly, giving the good news of who was really in his family. What is doing the will of God? It's bearing fruit. How do we bear fruit? Through your spirit in our lives. There's no strength in ourselves to please you. There's no ability we have to measure up to you. It's only the supernatural, divine working of Your Spirit in the soil of our lives, rooting out the thorns, breaking up the rocks, giving us a new heart, a heart that will seek You. And I would pray this morning that Your Word would powerfully impact lives today, that the response to this giving of Your Word would not merely be on hardened ground, or on shallow ground, or on crowded ground, but on good ground. And for any Christians that have allowed the stones or thorns or birds of the air to pluck your word from their hearts, may they focus and let you have your perfect work of bringing forth fruit continually in their lives. Don't let us be crowded. Don't let us be shallow. Don't let us be hard. Work in lives today, we pray. For Jesus' sake, amen.