Let's open in the Bible to the Gospel by Mark chapter 4. We're going to be there for quite a while because this is the greatest story that Jesus ever told. It's also the only story Jesus told in parable form that he completely explained every detail of it. And I'm so glad he did because it's the most important story to understand because it's all about our hearts. Now, you all know, as was mentioned, we had the three tornadic days. And so I had an inordinate amount of time listening to the radio, right? Wanting to know, you know, where it was going to hit. In fact, we even went after one of them. I loaded all the kids in the car. When I heard it was going east, we came from the west. And we actually got to see the one that was during the daytime. It was so exciting. The kids, everyone was pointing. And we went down 51st Street till it ends. 51st Street ends, you know, it just turns into mud. And it was right there that we saw that, and I thought, our first tornado. But did you know, while we were listening to all that, do you know what all the ads are on the radio these days? Are you noticing? They're about heart doctors. Have you noticed that? We have a better heart clinic. No, we have a better heart clinic, because we can cover your kidneys and your heart. And I mean, it was just, I mean, I thought, are we having a run on heart disease in Tulsa? It's just like every other ad. And then I thought, that's the number one killer, right? Heart disease. And so everybody's concerned about what? Their 80-year warrantied submersible pump that's right here. Well, Jesus talks about the heart in the fourth chapter of Mark, but it's not the 80-year rated submersible pump that you can go to all these wonderful new heart hospitals opening up. It's the one that's immortal. The one that's eternal. The one that's going to determine where you and I exist eternally. The decisions of our heart, of our soul, of our spirit, of our immaterial, eternal person. Well, that's what Mark 4 is all about. The supreme doctor of the human heart lets us in for the first and only time on one of his 35 parables. And he lets us in and does a complete, through this parable, heart checkup. Now I thought about that. Mark 4 and of course the parallels in Matthew and Luke are an incredible treasure. Because you and I get to come before the doctor of the soul, the doctor creator of the human body. And he looks at us and looks at our eternal part and says, could I examine that? Let me tell you, by what I say, you know the condition of your heart. And you should know this and do something about it, is what he's saying. And that's what I hope we learn. Well, let's look at verse 1. We're going to read it in a moment. But this is, first of all, the scene. Now remember, every time we study the Bible, there's a scene. There's an event that is picked out of the countless events of the life of Christ. And this event, the setting, the scene that the author, God the Holy Spirit, has chosen. Last time we saw, this is the longest recorded day. It starts back in chapter 3, the longest recorded day of Christ's ministry. He has more events in this day, more teaching times, more interactions, more recorded events than any other day. And he starts on one side of the Sea of Galilee, he makes his way around, then he crosses the Sea of Galilee, then he goes over and does a bunch of stuff there, and the big demoniac of Gadara, and then he comes back. It's all in one day. It's amazing what's going on. The day had a hard start. Remember his family fall out in Chapter 3? They said, you're off your rocker and need a little help. They actually came to arrest him, we saw in Chapter 3. Then the official rejection, the delegation from Jerusalem, they almost say that he should go back to hell because they said, you're from the devil. So they're really not very excited about his ministry and that was earlier in the day, but now he's where he loves to be in chapter 4 verse 1. Jesus loved to be before a group of people that had open hearts. open minds, as he puts it, open ears to hear what he was saying. And he loved to interact with them. He liked to get their attention. And then when he had their attention, he liked to slip in some eternal truth and have them think about that. And that's what he does. In fact, he gives a short story. And short is no exaggeration. It's only 99 words. Now try and go to English Composition and turn in a short story of 99 words and see what they give you as a grade, right? Most of us can hardly say anything. I mean, I'm already in the thousands of words this morning. And Jesus says it all in 99 words in the Greek text. In the English, it comes out to 132. But in the Greek text, 99 words. He said it all. And there they are listening to him. And Jesus starts out by saying, look. And he points off in the distance and draws their attention to something they all knew real well. It'd be like me saying, look, there's a car. And we'd all look, and there was a car. And as soon as you see the car, you think, yep, gas is a buck sixty something. And, you know, I wonder if they have car insurance. And, you know, it's just part of life. Jesus said, look, look at that farmer. And then he tells his story. And in that moment, before their eyes, as they followed the action of that farmer's sowing, their minds were engaged with Jesus Christ. And Jesus points out the obvious, the earthly, the mundane, and in the process lifts their hearts toward the eternal and toward the inscrutable, toward the incredible reality of the human eternal soul. And he said, that's what I want you to think about. And so he speaks to them. Let's listen again and hear him tell this story. I'm going to start in verse 3 of chapter 4. Listen. Behold, a sower went out to sow, and it happened, as he sowed, that some seed fell by the wayside, and the birds of the air came and devoured it. Some fell on stony ground where it did not have much earth, and immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of earth. But when the sun was up, it was scorched, and because it had no root, it withered, and some seed fell among thorns. and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no crop. But other seed fell on good ground and yielded a crop that sprang up, increased, and produced, some thirtyfold, some sixty, some a hundred. And he said to them, He who has ears to hear, let him hear. Let's bow together for prayer. Father in heaven, give us ears to hear. Lord Jesus, speak to us, to our hearts. And I pray that we would make choices this morning. If we have wayside hearts, I pray that we would allow you to break up that hardened ground and let the word of your truth, the seed that is imperishable, come into our hearts. I pray that we would make room for you. that we would wonder why you would even say, have you any room for me, my word? And we would think about it until we'd say, God must want me to respond to him. And I pray that there might be responses to you. First of all, those who have never responded, whose hearts are impervious and impenetrable to your word, through the wonder of regeneration, may they respond to your word. May it be implanted. and may it cause spiritual life, eternal life to come. And then for any Christians here who have become wayside hearted, the traffic of life has beaten them down. They don't get anything anymore out of your word, even out of these services, even out of Christian fellowship. I pray that that they too would say, Lord, plow my heart, break up that stony ground, that hard pack, and let me hear your voice like I used to. Wherever we are, I pray you'd speak, and we would listen. In the name of Jesus, we ask that. Amen. The scene we just talked about, the sower, Jesus pointed him to it. Now, let's take a moment to go back through and look at the story that he told. Because Jesus gives a familiar story, look back at verse 4 that we just read. This is the soil under the path, and Jesus points to the farmland around the Sea of Galilee, which looked in this season of the year like a golf course. It was just luxuriously green. And it was almost like a checkerboard golf course because it was all the little pathways that connected each person's little garden plot that they had. And Jesus points to those little plots of land that were being farmed because fields weren't fenced or walled, they just had these pathways. And he pointed out and he says, do you see that man sowing seeds? Somebody's going on the hard pack, the road. And they said, yeah, we see that. And so that's the first aspect of the story. He said, the rich soil under the path had become trampled regularly by many feet. It was hard packed like pavement, so the seeds wouldn't find any room. They wouldn't find a place. They wouldn't find any entrance into that soil. And so they would be crushed or devoured. And Jesus talks about the birds coming and picking them off. And if they hadn't gotten picked off by the birds, the oxen, the carts, the wheels, the hooves, the sandals would have done them in anyway. So that's the first soil under the path. Verse 5, if you look down, there's a soil over the rocks. This describes the shallow soil, also common. Remember, the farmers always cleared their land, but sometimes under the soil were these huge outcroppings or huge pieces of rock that were, I mean, it was just almost impossible to move them. And so what they did is they just smoothed the dirt around, and after they cleared all the stones, they left those big ones, because it more effort than it was worth. And so those sections, if you remember, with the thin veneer of soil, would be holding, the rock would hold the sun's warmth, plus it would hold the rain and moisture longer, it wouldn't go down, and so it became like a greenhouse, briefly. And so he talks about this soil over the rocks, and the rapid growth but then the equally rapid deaths of the plants who, once that moisture that was trapped in a few inches was gone, were baked. They died. they were gone. So he tells that part of the story. Then he talks about the soil around the thorns. In verse 7, actually there were thorn roots. No farmer would leave thorns out visible. They burned, then they plowed, they burned everything above the soil, then they plowed the soil. But the problem is below the soil were the very labyrinthical root systems of these native Acantha thorns and so Jesus tells that and he says that that these thorns already having their root system would come up faster than the seedlings which had to wait to germinate and therefore the head start of the thorns would cause the thorns to grow up sucking up the the moisture grow up taking all of the sunlight and so the seedling really never had a chance and also the thorn bush and briars would have such big fibrous bodies they'd crowd out and so they would basically, as Jesus said, choke out the fragile little life. Then Jesus talks about in verse 8 the hero of the story, the good soil, and he points to the last condition of that other soil and he says it's good. Good. Why? Because It received the seed, good because the seed sprung out, and good because the seed came to full maturity and bore a crop. And that's what the farmer wants. Remember, it's the same soil in all four pictures, it's rich, it's agricultural, it's the same farmer, the same seed, the same sun, the same rainfall, everything's the same. It's whether or not they bring a crop. That's the whole story. And Jesus tells it. Jesus pauses after verse 8. In verse 9 he says, now if you have ears to hear, hear. And only a few did. And that group comes to him and they say, we want to know more. And so, look at verse 13. Because now Jesus gives the sermon. Okay, here's the scene, tranquil, lakeside, all these thousands of people listening. And then Jesus tells a story and he points off and everybody looks at it. And then he says, do you have ears to hear? And a few, the disciples and others, says, we have ears, we want to hear. And they kind of mobbed him afterward. And they said, what did that mean? Why did you tell that? What are we supposed to get out of it? I'm so glad they asked, and we're going to read it. Because now comes the priceless message. Jesus takes the simple story and launches into one of the clearest explanations we could ever have about the inner workings of our hearts. So that's what's the important part that Jesus wanted to get to. Jesus says, no one knows the heart like I do. No one can diagnose the condition of the soul like he can. And so Jesus says, let me give you a complete, accurate, and exact diagnosis. So what does he say? Well, if we listen carefully, Jesus explains everything we will ever need to know. Everything. about what God expects from us as far as our spiritual response. to the communication God has made to us. What does God want? What kind of response? Jesus explains everything we need to know. Here are the questions that are answered by Christ's parables. Here's the first one. Why do some people never respond to the gospel? Why can you and I share countless tracks, books, tapes, videos, our testimony, and our constant, ongoing, trying to share the truth? Why can we do that and some people never respond? Jesus answers that in this parable. Great thing to know. He answers that. Number two, why do some people hear God's word and immediately respond, and others wait so long? He explains that too. Another question that we might have, why do believers sometimes grow for a while and then stop growing? They kind of like, they really know the Lord, and we know they know the Lord, they have spiritual fruit in their life, and all of a sudden it seems like something happened. Has that ever happened to you? Can you remember a time you got more out of God's Word than you do today or this week? Do you remember a time when you got more out of the public worship of God's people than you did this morning or other times? Do you ever remember a time when you loved the Lord with all your heart and you just couldn't wait to start the day with Him? And you say, I used to be like that, I'm not like that anymore. What happened? That's explained by Jesus in this little story, this passage. Wonderful. What makes us cold as believers at times, and other times feel so distant from God, that's what he's talking about in this parable. Not only is this thing directed towards showing that a lot of people who hear the Word of God are never converted, and some act like they're converted, some give every sign briefly, but Jesus is going beyond that. He's talking about what can affect our reception of his message. Well, Jesus now enters into the unseen world of our spiritual lives. He goes to the invisible realities that govern the working of God in the hearts of mankind. Jesus explains to us what sin does both in believers' lives and in unbelievers' lives. All that in his most amazing sermon, which is based on this story. Well, let's look down at verse 14. Here Jesus opens for us the meaning of this parable. And if you haven't yet marked it in your Bibles, it is key to understand this so that it'll be clear all the way through the Bible because it's the same author of this whole book and he kind of brings up the same things all the way through. So verse 14 is the first spot. And Jesus opens the meaning of the parable. He explains the farming picture and applies it to the hearts of hearers. And this is what he teaches. By the way, as he's even teaching, he's saying this, you can't understand my stories without me explaining them to you. In fact, if you don't understand the Bible, you don't need to go off to college, you don't need to buy more books, you need to get to know the author. That's what basically the big picture of the story is. Nobody can understand what's going on unless they know the author himself. And so these that drew aside to listen to Jesus were saying, we don't understand. He said, that's because you need me to explain it. That's the bottom line. That is probably the acid test of salvation. Whether or not, in fact, I just heard Wednesday morning at our Bible study, we were sitting at the crack of dawn and talking, and one of the people at the Bible study testified. They said that they had been in a large Bible study here in Tulsa. They were with hundreds of men studying the Bible, and they said, you know what, they never understood any of it. Their wife made them go, and they went and they sat there and they wrote, you know, kind of tried to write stuff down, but they never understood what it was about. Until the day they bowed their knee to Jesus Christ, called out to Him for salvation. It's amazing, the next time they went to Bible study, they completely were able to receive that truth. Why? Because it's spiritually discerned. And so Jesus says you need to be a teacher. But now look at verse 14. The first thing he says is the sower is the spreader of the message of salvation. The beginning of verse 14, the sower sows the word. Now you say, where do you get that? Well, let's leave Mark for a minute. Turn to Romans. So, in your Bibles, go to the right. It's Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans. Go to Romans chapter 10. Because all of us get to be, if we know Jesus Christ and obey Him, we get to do The sowing stuff. And it's one of the greatest privileges in life. Look at chapter 10 of the book of Romans. Chapter 10 in your Bible, verse 13. Because this should be something that draws all of us. We want to be this. Romans 10, 13. For whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Now you all know that. That's a great Romans road verse for salvation. But go to the next verse. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those, look, who preach the gospel of peace, who bring glad tidings of good things. Now, that's a sower of the seed of the Word of God. That's what we're called to do. Have you been throwing out any seeds of the word of God lately? Have you been going out proclaiming the good news of the gospel? Back to Mark, okay, Mark chapter 4, back to verse 14, look what it says there. It says, the sower sows the word. The sower sows the word. So it's not so much that we're supposed to go out and entertain people. It's not so much we're supposed to invent some new message. It's not so much that we're supposed to learn some technique, a captivating way. We are supposed to make sure in however vibrant or weak way that we give the word. If you never get around to giving the word, then you haven't sown. Now some, you know, water, but, you know, if you want to be a sower, you've got to sow the seed, which is the Word of God. Again, on Wednesday morning, it was really fun, I pulled out, which I always carry with me, I have it right here, I always have a track in my Bible, and I pulled out a track and I showed the men's Bible studies how I witnessed, and I showed them how I circled the verses, because I always want to get the people Not to read the cute story and get teary about it, but I want them to be drawn to God's Word. And that's what the sower does. Look again at verse 14. The sower sows the Word. So in Jesus' story of this farmer throwing this seed, what is the seed? It's the Word of God. What's the seed of the Word of God supposed to do? Well that's why, remember I told you this whole book has the same author? It's the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, the triune God breathing out this book. And so because it's the same author, the same themes and truths come all the way through. Let me show you. just keep your finger in Mark. Let's go to the book of James. Now that one's hard to find. It's almost to the back end of the Bible, but it, you know, James, 1st, 2nd Peter, you know, 1st, 2nd, 3rd John, Jude, Revelation, you know, it's after Hebrews. It's near the end, so if you want to go to the end and back up or whatever, but go to James with me, chapter 1 and verse 21. Here's an important verse to Mark, because if the seed is God's Word, only the Word that enters the heart and becomes a part of the life is real. That's what Jesus' story says. Now he just says, it springs up and brings forth fruit. And so a lot of people say, well wait a minute, all of it sprung up in the other two soils, how do you know they're not saved? Well that's explained in the Bible. And look at James chapter 1 verse 21. Therefore, I'm reading Old King James, therefore, lay aside all filthiness and the overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness, look at this, the implanted word which is able to save your souls. It's not just hearing the Bible, it's not just memorizing the Bible, it's not just studying the Bible, it's not just getting it at the sale and tacking it on the wall of your home, it's not just having it around on your mind, it's having it implanted into your life. Back to Jesus' story. It's the farmer. I mean, you can keep your seed packets. I mean, I don't know how many times, you know, I'm taken, caught up with the spring fever and I go to Home Depot or Lowe's or whatever and buy all these seed packets and then never have time to plant them. You know what? It doesn't do any good to have them on the shelf. Right? What he's saying is, receive the implanted Word. Now, keep going to the next book after James. It's 1 Peter. The next one to the right. Look at chapter 1, verse 23. Same idea. The seed is God's Word, and the Word has to enter the heart and become a part of the life. And it says in 1 Peter 1.23, here it is, having been born again. How do you know if you're born again? Okay, good thing to know. Not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible through the Word of God. which lives and abides forever. And in the context of James 1 and 1 Peter, that word is received into the life. It's a living and abiding word. It abides forever. It's incorruptible. It doesn't die. It doesn't get choked. It doesn't wither. It doesn't get eaten up by the birds. It doesn't get trampled. It doesn't ever end. Now sometimes we constrict the growth of the Word of God in our lives. We're going to see that as we go through this story. But if you're born again, it's never choked, it's never crushed, it's never dead. Why? Because 1 Peter 1.23, the seed is incorruptible, it's immortal, it's eternal, it's living, it's God's Word. And therefore, the Word comes to live and abide in us and it changes us. Well, Back to Mark 4. You're going to know the pathway back to Mark 4. We're going to be there a long time because there are actually four parts to this sermon. Look at verse 15. He says the soil is the human heart. And so if you're marking it, look at the very last four words of verse 15, sown in their hearts. So immediately Jesus has gone from farming and garden and dirt to the immaterial part, the eternal part of us as human beings. And he says, I'm talking about this happening inside of your spiritual being. I'm talking about in your heart. in your non-material part. Not the 80-year pump that's submersible and this big muscle that keeps us alive and all the blood going around. I'm talking about the non-material part of you, the real you. He said, that's what I'm talking about. So the soil is the human heart. And then starting at the end of verse, in verse 15 and all the way through verse 20, he talks about the kinds of soil, the kinds of hearts. Well, it's interesting, the symbol in Christ's story of God's Word being like a seed is so true. Have you thought about that? Did you know that we can't make seeds Ever thought about that? We can't make seeds. I can't make pumpkin seeds. I can't make geranium seeds. I can grow a geranium or I can grow a marigold and I can collect the seeds at the end of the time. But you can't make seeds. They're part of God's creation. They are alive and God's word is alive. And we proclaim the gospel and it can't be our message. You don't have to think up your own message. Jesus is saying that. That's why the same living word makes no impact on some hearts. It's not that you have the wrong message. If you use God's word and there's no impact, Jesus explains why. And let's look at that because we're going to go through now as he explains what's going on. First of all, in verse 15, these are the ones by the wayside. What are wayside hearts? Wayside hearts, number one, are the horrible indictment against lost people. People who go to hell have wayside hearts, or stony or thorny. But wayside is the first one that Jesus describes. So what does a person look like that is not going to eternally be in heaven? Well listen, Jesus describes what happens when God's word falls on the wayside heart. When God's word comes to that person, the story says, verse 15 says, that God's word finds that heart impenetrable, hard, and insensitive. The word hits it, no response. Just nothing. It's just insensitive, the heart. It's impervious, it's impenetrable. Well, what's a wayside heart? It's a heart that's gotten hard and resistant. This heart is part of the same good soil. In fact, the good soil and the wayside are right abutting, they're adjoining. They are the very same dirt, the same soil. But the wayside has gotten packed down. It's gotten beaten down by time, by activity. Remember we saw last week, by all the constant carts, the hooves, the sandals, everything going along that path. That's what happens. It's a heart, spiritually, that is such a portrait of the unconverted. They hear sermons and forget them, surrounded by God's truth, nothing sinks in, they're unstirred. Now, listen to Proverbs 29. I want to share with you because in the Old Testament, the hard-packed, soil-hearted person was called, in the Old Testament, stiff-necked. Proverbs 29.1, a man who remains stiff-necked after many rebukes will suddenly be destroyed with no remedy. Now that not only talks about, in the temporary, about, you know, these kind of know-it-alls, stiff-necked people will have hard things happen to them. Always the scripture looks beyond the here and now to the then and there, the eternal. And this person, Proverbs 29.1, who remains stiff-necked After many opportunities, many, many times trying to get them broken up by, as we saw last week, sickness and adversity and accident and life getting upset. After all that, if they still remain resistant, impenetrable and hard, Proverbs 29.1 says, they will suddenly be destroyed without remedy. By the way, the Bible never has a second chance. Universalism is a concept from the devil. He wants people to think that, you know, you'll get another chance when you find out it's all real, after the grave, you know, the Betty Edie, you know, embraced by the light kind of thing, that you'll finally, you know, come to your senses in the grave and see all that is true, and so you'll then decide, no, that's not from God. That God is only the God of the second chance while you're alive and breathing. Otherwise, he said, you'll be cut off. Well, the hard-hearted person in the Bible is unresponsive to spiritual things. They're unconcerned about their souls. Now, Jesus was a master illustrator. Let me illustrate this for you because, remember, he was talking to real people. Who were the wayside-hearted people he was talking to? Why, who was there in the crowd listening? Two groups we know for sure because they had just been getting on him. and they were the priestly group and the scribal group. Now let me talk about those two people because we can identify, they're all the way through the New Testament, the Gospels. And every time you hear about the religious leaders and the scribes and the Pharisees and the priests and the Sadducees, this is the group Jesus was talking to about wayside hearts. Let me describe them for you, okay? So they'll never be the same. Next time you read the Bible and see the scribes and Pharisees and priests and Sadducees, you'll go, oh man, wow. I remember them. Let me read to you about them. The tremendous example is the wayside hearts of the religious leaders of Christ's day. They often came to attack him when he was in Jerusalem, but before that they came to denounce him up here in Galilee and said, you're from the devil. And one of the most visible wayside hearts in Christ's times were the temple workers. or the priests. Now let me describe the priests for you. As a priest, it meant they were quoting the Word of God regularly during their day. They would know by diligent study the prescribed rituals Moses had laid down. These guys were not pagans. These were very religious people. They knew the Bible, and they knew all the verses in the Bible, and they would serve in the temple performing the sacrifices, the offerings, and the cleansings. That's who the priests were. Every time you read about the Sadducees... And by the way, do you know how to know that they were bad? Because they were sad, you see. That's just a little bit of biblical humor. So the Sadducees were bad guys. They were sad, you see. But all day long they were doing the activities that demanded recognition of sin. Why did people bring animals to the temple? They came bringing that animal and they said, I'm bringing this because I'm a sinner and I need atonement for my sin. And they'd carry in this lamb. And so the Sadducees, the priests, would recognize why the worshiper had come and would prescribe exactly how the sin would be remedied. These were religious workers, okay? They were religious workers, temple workers. They would also demand that people confess their sin. What they were supposed to do is they were supposed to put their hand on the head of that animal and it says in the scriptures, confess over it their sins. So these guys were masters at understanding sacrifices and eliciting confessions of sin. And they knew the Bible very well. After they got that, they would offer a substitutionary sacrifice, proclaiming the name of the Lord. This went on for hundreds of years, generations of priests. If you want to read it, it's the boring part of the Old Testament. You know, when you read about, they cut the ox and they slashed it and they skinned it. That's what these guys did. Now, let's turn again to Isaiah. Turn back to the middle of your Bible, that's the Psalms. And then go to the right, just a little ways, to Isaiah. And we're going to look at Isaiah 29, 13. Because these wayside-hearted priests in Christ's times, the temple workers, were all day long doing the activities, recognizing sin, making people confess sin, offering substitutionary sacrifices, and when they did so, they would proclaim the glorious name. Now look at Isaiah 29, 29th chapter of Isaiah, verse 13. The Lord says, These people come near to me with their mouth. They honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of their rules, taught by men. Isaiah 29, 13. Now think about it. These priests' hands were stained with the blood of substitutionary sacrificial animals. They'd come home with blood splattered all over their white outfits, and they'd have to change out of that. Actually, they did it at the temple. They couldn't go home in those priestly things. All day long, they were trafficking in the pictures of salvation. Their hands were stained by the blood of lambs sacrificed for others, but they never applied it to themselves. They never applied it to themselves. That's the picture of a wayside heart. You can be right in the fray and the thick of it. You can be the best VBS teacher, Sunday school teacher. You can be the best youth worker. You can be the best Bible teacher. You can be in the ministry. My first pastorate, I was an associate pastor to an evangelist who got saved in one of his own meetings. His biography, he wrote, I was the original Judas. That's, what a bad title for you. But you know, what he was saying was, he, he didn't, he knew he didn't know the Lord, but yet he was such a powerful speaker. Name was Walter Burrow. Still is a power. He's saved and still an evangelist. But you know what? He gets more excited about it now because he knows the Lord. But he used to be able to move crowds. He started preaching when he was just a young boy. So gifted. And he traveled all through the South. And he started doing tent meetings and I mean really preaching the gospel. And there are hundreds of people that have come to Christ through him. And yet he knew down deep that he had never been saved. Why? Because he'd never applied it to himself. The truth of God had surrounded him. It had never entered him. But real quickly, there's a second group. Jesus was talking to. Not just these priests who were killing all the animals, the scribes were also there too. Another sobering picture. When you think of scribes, think of wayside hearts. These were the premier Bible scholars of Christ's day. As a scribe, they were in the Word every day. Ever thought about that? Ever thought about having a job where you're in the Word all day long, every day? Every day! Did you ever think of what it's like to spend your life in the Word of God and never having it get past the surface? That's what these guys were. It never got in. A scribe's day was filled with copying the sacred word of God. They guarded it. They cared for it. They produced scrolls. They copied the words. They counted the words. They read the words. They studied the words. They held the words. They heard the words. That's how they copied it. One guy read it and the other ones wrote it down. So these guys all day long were copying and hearing the word. but only with their physical ears. They did not feel the fire of God's Word in their heart. They did not hear the hammer breaking up the hardness of their hard, sinful hearts. If you're in Isaiah, turn to the next book. Look at Jeremiah 23. Here's an indictment on this group of wayside hearts. Next book over, Isaiah and then Jeremiah, chapter 23. Verse 29. This is the Lord, in fact the whole 23rd chapter of Jeremiah is very similar to the whole 23rd chapter of Matthew because both are indictments upon religious professionals and those who are near in the word but not in the heart. And look what it says in verse 29. Is not my word like fire, declares the Lord, and a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces? He says, you're handling my word. My word should consume and make you fearful of the judgment of God against your sin. My word by the power of the Spirit should hammer and break the hardness of your heart. But if you read the 23rd chapter, it was not like that. Starting in verse 9 of Jeremiah, these false word handlers. Okay? What were the scribes like? Their minds and their mouths were filled with God's Word, prepared for others, never applied to themselves. You know, you can be up here and prepare to sing the Word of God to others. You can go and volunteer and prepare to teach the Word of God to others. But if it never is applied to you, then you're a wayside heart. You can be right next to the fruitful field and be packed down and never find entrance, is what he's saying. So Jesus makes his first diagnosis. He says, some hearts are so traveled with sin, so filled with the traffic of life, so trampled by everything but God, that God can't find any room to get into their life. And what Jesus says is, a heart that persists in hardness is lost. A heart that never gets plowed up and softened is lost and hell bound. A heart that can't take in the word of God is hopeless. That's why he said, listen, the people that came thought everything was great. They were very religious. Jews are religious by nature. Jesus said, no, listen to me. A heart that can't take in my word A heart that tramples his truth must, must listen. What's Christ's prescription? He says, break up your unplowed heart and let God's word in. You say, where do you get that? Well, turn back to Jeremiah chapter 4. You're in the book of Jeremiah. Go back to chapter 4 of Jeremiah. I love this. This is what he says. This is what the Lord says to the men of Judah, Jeremiah 4, 3. Break up your hard ground. Did you catch that? Jeremiah 4.3? Break up your unplowed ground. Don't sow among thorns. See, Jesus as a human had mastered the Scriptures as God had inspired them through His Spirit. But you know what? He knew the Word and He just sows all this together. When He was telling the parable of the sower, He was talking about what these people already knew from the Old Testament. He says, break up your unplowed ground. Don't sow among thorns. Let me read to you a few books over. I don't want you to get lost, but Hosea chapter 10. So for yourselves in righteousness, verse 12 says, reap the fruit of unfailing love. Break up your unplowed ground. It's time to seek the Lord. Now why did Jesus tell this story? Simply to say three out of four people that hear the gospel are going to go to hell? Never. Never. That's not why he told this. He didn't say this to say, eh, there's a hard heart, he's going to hell. Yep. He said it to give people an opportunity to respond. Why do you think the God of the universe tells hard-hearted people, break up your un-plowed ground, plow up your un-plowed ground? Why? Because He wants them to. He wants them to respond to Him. Now, we can't plow our own hearts. But we can ask God to do it. And that's what he's saying. I want you to respond to me. And this morning, if you've heard Christ's description and say, that's me. I don't have a response to Jesus in my heart. I'm cold. I'm indifferent. That probably means that you're unregenerated. And if you're unregenerated, then you must respond. If you've never met the Lord, then the response he seeks from you is to receive his implanted word, to make room for him in your life, to turn to him in faith, to believe on him for salvation, to confess you need his work in your life. Believe and receive his forgiveness as you confess your sin, turning from them. What happens? It's instantaneous. In an instant of faith, Jesus does the miraculous surgery of the spiritual heart. He removes the old one that's dead in the cancer of sin. He transplants in a new one that's alive and filled with his spirit. Now what happens if you say, I know already he's done that in my life, but I'm starting to slip away. I'm starting to feel cold. I feel distant. I came this morning because I love the Lord but I don't seem to be in touch with Him." Well that's why he told this story. Because believers can get trampled down too. You get too much going in your life and there's no room for God. You get too many things and you allow sin to come back in your life and yield yourself to it and it tramples down the softness of your heart. It applies both ways. The same sin that hardens even more the unregenerate makes us distant from God and feel unsaved. I love what Daniel Webster Whittle, the guy that wrote this, I love the background of him, was a major in the Northern Army, the Union Army in the Civil War, got his right arm blown off in the battle, was unsaved, was laying in the hospital, and someone passed him a Bible. I wonder if it was the early branch of the Gideons, I don't know. But they handed him a Bible, and there was one arm in the hospital, he was reading it, and he felt stirred, but he said, I don't want to yield my life to God, so he puts it away. And just then, one of the orderlies comes along, shakes him and says, Sir, you're a Christian, aren't you? The guy next to you is dying. Why don't you do something to help him? And he looked at him and said, I'm no Christian. They said, don't tell me that. You're reading the Bible. Come on, help him. So he gets out with one arm on his knees with his little Bible open, and this guy is dying next to him with his wounds. And he opened to where he was reading and read it to him and said, you need to believe that. And his testimony is, while he was reading it, on his knees to the dying man, he believed it himself. And so he began to be an evangelist. He became the treasurer of the Elgin Watch Company and went out to write a dozen or so hymns. Here's one of them. And this is based on this idea of the hard soil with no room. If the ways of God are distant from you, so familiar that they don't affect you anymore or never have, the Lord is asking you a question. So, I'm gonna read the question, and the chorus, the refrain, I want you to read. And you're gonna have to read it several times, okay? I'll read the verse, and then you read the room for Jesus, King of glory, hasten now His word obey, swing the heart store widely open, bid Him enter while you may. Okay, you ready? I'll read the first, you echo back the chorus, and like that, okay? Question. You've heard the sower and the seed? Have you any room for Jesus? He who bore your load of sin, as he knocks and asks admission, sinner, will you let him in? Room for Jesus, King of glory. Hasten now His word, obey. Swing the heart's door widely open. Bid Him enter while you may. Room for pleasure, room for business, but for Christ the crucified, not a place that He can enter in the heart for which He died. Room for Jesus, King of Glory. Hasten now His word, obey. Swing the heart's door widely open. Bid Him enter while you may. Have you any room for Jesus? As in grace, He calls again. Oh, today is time accepted. Tomorrow you may call in vain. Room for Jesus, King of Glory. Hasten now His word. Obey. Swing the heart's door widely open. Bid Him enter while you may. Room and time now give to Jesus. Soon will pass God's day of grace. Soon thy heart left cold and silent, and thy Savior's pleading cease. Room for Jesus, King of glory. Hasten now, his word obey. Swing the heart's door widely open. Bid him enter while you may. Please bow with me as I pray. Father, I pray that you would work in hearts for the heart that has never been penetrated by your word today. If they will hear your voice and harden no longer and cry out to you, you will make room, you will plow up, you will implant, and in an instant they will know what we who know you know, and that is you, whom to know is life eternal. And they will understand the gravity of their sins, and they will understand that they have been far from you. and that that glorious news of your good salvation will sweep through their life. For any of your children who have felt that gradual distancing and coldness coming, I pray that they would say, Lord, plow my heart, plow my life. I make room, I throw open my life. Anything that is trampling out your still small voice and hardening me in my life, any sin, any neglect I repent of in the name of Jesus. Oh Lord, I pray you do a great work and bring to yourself those whom you have this morning in salvation and bring back all who have wandered and may they know the joy of the Lord. In the name of Jesus we pray. Amen.