The other thing is the sermon notes for all this stuff are on the app with the scripture references and stuff and the outline. And you know, if you're called to preach or you preach at a nursing home sometime or you hear something, you can always download those outlines to your phone and then you'll have them. Forever, especially if you save him on the cloud. All right, Matthew 13 That's where we're at and we have been going through this parable But the Lord that he spake many things to them by parables and to the crowd he told them one parable so there's many things in this parable for us to learn and We've been talking about the soil. So a little bit of review Who is the sower? It's the man with the Word of God. It's the preacher, it's the teacher, it's the soul winner, it's Jesus, it's the person that has the Word and He's giving the Word out. What is the seed? Anyone remember? The seed is the Word of God, exactly. And what is the soil or heart? The soil represents the various types of hearts and the varied responses to the Word being sown there. The Word of God has life in it. And the truth of God has to take hold in the heart, be cultivated, and allowed to bear fruit. It's shocking to recognize that three-fourths of the seed did not bear fruit. Only one-fourth of the seeds bear fruit. There was nothing wrong with the seed. You see, he wasn't impressed with the great multitudes that we read about that followed him. He knew most of them would walk away and never allow the seed to bear fruit in their heart. And so, he wasn't impressed with that. The primary application here is salvation. Okay? And the good soil represents that. But, here's what I want to note, because most everyone in here, not everybody, but most people in here are saved, okay? If you're saved, you're part of the Bride of Christ, and in the Song of Solomon, it talks a lot about a garden. And it says, a garden is enclosed in my spouse. I went down to the garden to get the fruits and the vegetables and all the things that the garden has to offer, okay? Now, every garden had these soils in it. So if you are a garden for the Lord and He wants to have fruit, He's looking for fruit, you have to take care of the soil, you have to get the stones out, you have to break up the fallow ground, the beaten, the wayside, you have to get the thorns out, you have to tend, you have to incline your heart, you have to keep your heart with all diligence, because the Lord came and He's looking for fruit. That's why He gave the seed. He wants a return. He wants fruit. He wants you to tell the world. He wants you to produce after your kind. And He's coming and He's looking for fruit. And He's not happy if there's no fruit. He invested His life. He gave every drop of blood to pay for His garden. To pay for you and me. And imagine that the Lord comes this morning to your garden. You know when you grow a garden, you know the first thing you think about when you wake up? Your plants. How are my plants doing? What are my tomato plants doing? I wonder if those flowers, if they have fruit on them now. Magical things happen during the night in the garden. It's incredible. And you wake up, and you go outside, and you go to your garden, and your garden gives you fruit, and it gives you joy, and it gives you all kinds of things that your television could never give you, you can get from your garden. And when God comes to you in the morning, He comes to His garden, does He find fruit? Well, that depends on the soil. There's four types of soil. We talked about the wayside, packed down by strangers and busyness and no effect. Now we're going to the stony soil. Now the stony soil is deceptive because it looks like good earth. There's a thin layer of topsoil over a rock. And you say, that's good earth, but it's not good earth. You know, if you'll notice beside the church, don't notice this, but if you ever did, you'll notice in the summer the grass dies there, so we're going to zero-scape it this year, Lord willing. But why? Because when they built this, they brought the concrete and the base and the mortar and old asphalt that used to be parking there, and then they put a thin layer of dirt over it and tried to paint grass over it. And it didn't work. It's a stony place. It can't support the grass. But it looks good as long as the conditions are right. And that's what the stony soil represents. Anything that prevents the Word of God from taking root in your heart. It's anything that rejects the Word of God. The root tries to go down and there's a rock and it says, not here. You can't come here. It's a no-go place in your heart. Jesus can go, but He can't go there. I was talking to a man, and he said, is the Lord against homosexual lifestyle? I said, well, the Bible says He is, yes. And he said, well, then I don't want Jesus. There was a rock. But Christians do that, too, that are already saved. They say, God, You can't go here. Maybe it's unbelief, it's a lack of faith, it's a vice, a relationship, an ambition. Any sin that prevents you from being fruitful that the soil cannot produce fruit for the Lord. So think about this as we go into this. Can my soil support what God is wanting to do in my life? What do you think God wants to do in your life? Do you think He wants to do something good? He wants to do something great. He wants you to produce fruit. Be a fruitful tree for Him. Do you think God wants to do that? Can my soil support what God is trying to do in His life? Is my heart a good place for a seed? The seed is so precious, isn't it? God, He has some wonderful plants. Is my heart a good place for His plants? Is it a good place for His seed? When God does that, when He comes looking, will my heart, will it support what God wants to do in my life? Maybe if you've never grown anything, that doesn't resonate with you. So will my closet shelf hold the clothes He wants to put on it? Maybe that helps, right? Will my wallet hold the money he wants to put in? That'll definitely work. So this stony soil represents four aspects of one character, and we'll talk about that. Number one, verse 5, if you'll look at it with me, it's a shallow character. Look at verse 5. Some fell upon stony places where they had not much earth, and forthwith they sprung up because they had no deepness of earth. Now, when you want to plant a tomato plant, you go to the store, and it looks like this. You'll see it on the screen. You'll see it here. Okay? And what you're supposed to do is, most people, they just dig a little hole, and they say, oh, man, look at that nice plant. I don't want to get anything dirty, so I'm just going to plant it right here. And they dig a little hole, and they just plant it right there. But you know what you're supposed to do? You're supposed to do this. You're supposed to trim all this stuff off, you know. You know, people don't like doing this because it's so pretty, you know, such a beautiful plant. And I wouldn't want to look at those flowers, you know. They're not going to bear fruit anyway. So you know what you're supposed to do? You're supposed to trim it all off and you dig a deep hole like this. And you plant it to where just the very little bit of top is sticking up. And when you're done, it'll look something like this. Okay? And then you know what happens? You go out to the garden in the morning. And you have the one that was planted in a little pot that's not very deep, and the next day it's bigger. And you're like, wow. And then you look at your plant that you planted correctly in this deep hole, and nothing's happening. You're like, what is going on? Is there something wrong with this plant? Did I plant it too deep? What is wrong? But this verse explains what's going on here. It says that you are supposed to, the remnant that escaped of the house of Judah shall take root downward and bear fruit upward. You know the first thing you want this plant to do is establish a good root system. You want it to grow and all these things that you pinched off and all these little hair on the tomato plant, you know what they turn into? They turn into roots that support it when the sun comes out. And they turn into roots that get the nutrients that give the plant the strength it has to bear fruit. But when it's on a rock, you know what happens? It heats the soil up, and that seed, it breaks forth, But it never penetrates. It never goes down to the heart and goes to the soil. It just comes up. You know, you can get a propagation tray, and they look something like this if you are, you know, trying to plant plants in a greenhouse, little seeds. It's cold in the spring, and young plants don't like cold feet. If you're ever planting squash, just remember they don't like cold feet. And so what happens is you put them on the propagation tray. It's like a heat pad, and it just keeps the soil warm, and so they just spring up. And that's okay when it's cold. And that's okay when it's in the spring, and it's okay when it's in the greenhouse. But that's not okay in the summer. That's not okay when the sun comes up. Fourth width, it'll spring up. You know what this is? It's shallow. People that are this way, they're showy, it's all on top, it's superficial, like a 70's hairdo. There's nothing underneath. It's just big, but there's nothing there. I was reading a book about World War I and the political characters that brought that war about, and they were talking about the prime minister of Germany or Hungary, his name was Bulow, and they said this about him, he could be quite a fellow if his character could obtain the height of his personality. But he always made all these promises and he never fulfilled them. Everybody thought he was the greatest thing since sliced bread when they met him. But then they found out later there was no substance there, no roots, just empty promise. And that's how some Christians are. They're like that. They're empty. And the sun comes up and they're all on top. There's nothing to support it. I had a young man cutting my hair at the barber college. He'd been through a lot in life, had a lot of people die, and so I said, you know, you say you're not a Christian, and not religious, not anything like that, and I said, you've been through a lot in life, and you seem to be doing okay. How do you cope, and how do you get through life without God? How do you manage these things in your head? Can you tell me? And he said, well, I just think, you know, and I just believe that they went to a better place. And I said, how do you know that to be true? And he said, I don't really know it to be true. It just makes me feel good to think it. I said, if you were wrong, would you want to know? He said, no. I wouldn't want to know. I don't want to think negative. I wouldn't want to know that. I said, so you would rather believe a lie because it makes you feel good. I said, suppose you're driving down the road and the bridge is out, and you're happy. You're on your way to your girlfriend's house, and the bridge is out, and you don't know about it. Would you want to know? He said, I kind of see your point. I see where you're going. And you know, a lot of Christians are like that. Your faith is all on top. It's superficial. It's showy. But there's nothing underneath. There's no substance. Suppose I asked you this, I said, how do you know that you did not just grow up and you're a Christian because of who your parents were and where you were born? How do you know that Christianity is true and you're right and other people are wrong? Have you ever thought about that? Can you answer that question? How do you know heaven is real? How do you know the Bible is true? How do you know salvation? How do you know you're actually saved? Have you ever thought about these things? Have you ever answered these questions? And you know what most people do? They have to protect their faith by not asking these questions, and not thinking about them, and putting them out of their head. And they protect their faith by not being around people that ask these questions, because there's nothing in their faith that's too shallow to support it. And you know what the Bible says? It says, come now, let us reason together, saith the Lord. Though your sins be as scarlet, God wants you to think about it. He don't want you to have to protect your faith. He wants your faith to protect you. And He said, produce your cause. Bring forth your strong reasons, saith the Lord. Let's examine it. A Christianity, a faith that cannot be examined and cannot be tested, it won't hold up when you need it. Have you thought about your faith? Have you reasoned? Have you went through it? Have you studied it? Or is it not worth studying? Shallow characters. Paul went and he reasoned in the synagogue on the Sabbath day. He reasoned with them out of the Scriptures. What is it about our faith that would make a man like Paul, that is killing Christians, become a Christian and die for Christ? What would do that? What would make the apostles? They lose everything and die for Christ. What did they have to gain? Nothing. Have you thought about it? Not only a shallow character is represented by this soil, but number two, a spontaneous character. And not all of these things, it's bad to be shallow, but it's not always bad to be spontaneous. But when it comes to this, look at verse 5, it says in Some fell upon stony places where they had not much earth, and forthwith, they sprung up. Just immediately, it sprung up. Now remember, the seed never penetrated the heart. It's on the rock. It never went down, it only went up. The seed is good, but it never affected the heart. And look at verse 6. And when the sun was up, they were scorched because they had no what. Underline that, no what. No root. Let me ask you this, that you read your Bible, who is the root? Who's the root, Brother Phil? Jesus. Revelation 22, 16, I'm the root. I'm the root. They had no root. They didn't have Jesus. No root. I'm the root and offspring of David. It went up, it never went down. They were spontaneous and forthwith. Look at Mark 4 and verse 5. You don't have to turn there. It says immediately it spring up. Look at Matthew 13 and verse 20. And they received the seed in stony places, the same as he that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it. There's a good word that you need to start using every day. Anon. It means immediately. Right away, without intercession, like the kids come for lunch. They come anon. Right away, they receive it. And it says in Mark 4, they receive it with gladness. But Jesus is the root, and they don't have it, and yet they're so moved, and they're so happy, but the root never penetrated. They haven't thought about it. Here, let me say it this way. I was witnessing to this young lady. I was with the kids at the pool. And the pool is like, you can ask Isaiah and Blake, it's my fishing spot. There's no fish. There's only human fish, right? So I'm witnessing to people. And there was this young lady there with her boyfriend, and I began to witness to her. And as I'm witnessing to her, she's just weeping. She's weeping. And she's like, that is so beautiful. Just such a beautiful story. You have to forgive me. I cry all the time. When I watch movies, I cry. Yeah, she's just such a baby. Beautiful. It just reminds me of a fairy tale. And I said, oh boy. There you go. She received it anon with joy. She received it the same way people received the Titanic. I'll never let you go, Jack. I'll never let you go. And then she lets him go and people are crying. I was in the theater when that happened. I said, liar! Why are you crying? She's lying. She let him go. Have you ever seen the diagram where you can see all the different ways that two people could fit on that raft? But she received it the same way she received the Titanic. I remember one time I was in Bible school, and there was this movie that came out, Cast Away, with Tom Hanks, right? And so he's on this makeshift raft, and he went insane, so he made a friend out of volleyball and named him Wilson, right? And the volleyball's floating away, and he's out there about to drown. He's like, Wilson! Wilson, I'm so sorry, Wilson! And I look at next to my friend and he's crying. And I said, it's just a volleyball. This is a movie. Tom Hanks will be OK. He got paid a million dollars to do this. We were watching this old Disney movie with my kids called Lobo. And there's a hunter chasing the wolf. And Noah's like, oh, is Lobo going to die? I'm like, son, don't worry. Lobo's been dead 40 years ago. Listen, Jesus is more than an emotional feeling. It's something that people... You know what? I saw the lady two weeks later. I said, did you think about what we talked about? No, I didn't think about it. I was too busy. And then she was at the pool for two hours. Busy means different things to different people. If there was a root that, you know, Pastor Rogers, he called them Alka-Seltzer Christians. He said, you put them in water and they fizzle for a while and disappear. These are the people that they come to church, and you give an altar call, and they come running down, and they want to get saved, and then they want to get baptized. I had a guy come running down, and some of you remember this. He got saved, and then he wanted to get baptized, and he didn't have any clothes. So we baptized him, and he went home wet, and he was going to sign up for everything and be here every service, and you never saw him ever again. Never one time. Anon with joy! But it never... sank in. It says in verse 21, Yet he hath no root, but dureth for a while. And then the tribulation comes and by and by he's offended. High pressure evangelism sometimes produces these shallow conversions. You know, one time I went soul wedding with a preacher. And I heard he was a great soul winner, so I wanted to see how he did it. And then I found out. Much to my regret. So he gave somebody a little card, and it said, you see there, the first thing, it says, all of sin. Have you ever done anything bad? Good, good. Okay, it says that Jesus died for your sin. And then if you receive him, you can go to heaven. He said, I'm going to pray for you. He said, Lord, I know this young man's a sinner, and you die for him if he believes on you, he can go to heaven. He said, did you follow along in your head with what I was saying? He said, yeah, well, according to the Bible, you're saved. And I said, what in the world? You know, if you're converted, you ought to know it. You ought to be able to articulate what happened. I received Christ. You ought to know it. You know, sometimes I think we should win souls like Jesus did. You know? You know, when I study that, you know what Jesus said? He said this. He said, they that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. And then he said this, go and learn what that means. How many times did he tell people to go away or walk away? Nicodemus came back. Came back. You know, when you put a seed in the soil, I say, you know what? Don't you want to come up? Don't you want to turn into a beautiful plant, produce fruit? But it just takes time. Takes time to germinate. You know what the Lord said? He said to count the cost. You know what I've learned? Emotional Christianity dies with the emotions. It goes away with the emotions. Jailhouse religion goes away with the jailhouse. You know, people come sometimes because they're in a crisis, and they're in a bad situation, and they need someone to fix their situation, they don't come because they are a mess and they need a Savior. And there's a difference. Jesus said, go and learn what that meaneth. He said, count the cost. Which of you are intending to build a tower? You know, sometimes I'll talk to people and they're resistant to salvation, and then I'll ask them this question, just to kind of show them why they're resistant to salvation. I'll say, what would the implications be if you got saved? And they'd say, and I don't believe in a work salvation. Can I make that clear? Salvation is by grace through faith. Jesus plus nothing. There's nothing you have to do. He did it all. You just have to trust Him and believe that. But if somebody doesn't do that, why don't they do it? Light is coming to the world and they won't do it because they love the darkness rather than light. Sometimes you have to expose that darkness. So I said, why won't you? Well, if I got saved, I'd have to give up this relationship or this vice or this sin. I said, well, do you think it'd be worth it? Once again, salvation is, you know what the devil wants you to do? He wants you to count the cost. You know what Jesus wants you to do? He wants you to count the cost. You know what the devil says? You know, if you got saved, you'd have to give up her. You'd have to stop doing this. And he wants you to say, well, you know what? If I have to stop doing that, then I'm not going to get saved because it's not worth it. And you know what Jesus wants you to think? You know, I thought about it, and Jesus is worth more than the whole world to me. He's worth more than everything to me. I've counted the costs. I've thought about it. No Christian, when they first get saved, counts all the costs. I didn't. Did you? Nobody does. But you know what? Every Christian that does get saved does count the cost. And they eventually take inventory. And if they have a root in themselves, you know what they say? Yeah, Jesus is worth it. You know, I'm going to say something here that's super blasphemous to Baptists, Jesus did it in a little different way than we do. And I'm not saying the way we do it is wrong. Jesus never gave an altar call. I give altar calls. I've responded to an altar call. They've been good in my life. Jesus never asked for a show of hands. And I have, and I probably will again. But the point is this. Christianity, it's like gold, okay? He wants you to examine it and come to a conviction. I am lost, I am undone, and Jesus is what I need. But the people that don't think about it, they easy come, easy go. What would the implications be? You know what the spontaneous character does? He gets emotional at church, and he writes a check that he can't pay when he's not feeling that way the next day. Don't we do that? God, if you give me a raise, then I'll do... You got the raise. Did you follow through? He makes a vow in the first... Have you counted the cost? Is Jesus more than a feeling to you? If not, then you're not going to last. Take inventory. How much is Jesus worth for you? Is the only time you feel close to the Lord is the time of heightened emotion? Does it go deeper than that? Is He more than a feeling to you? And then, number three, you'll see this. And this one is my favorite one. It's a sensitive character. Look at verse 6. Look at verse 6. You've got to get this. Okay? And when the sun was up, they were scorched because they had no root, right? They withered away. Now let me ask you this, and I want you to think about this. The sun, is that good for a plant or bad for a plant? Good for a plant. If this stayed inside, would it die, even if you watered it and fed it? Yes, it has to have sun. Okay? So this character, this stony soil, the things that are meant to be good for it are actually bad for him. You have to have sunlight to grow a plant. When is the last time you went to Walmart and got a watermelon and it said, grown in Alaska? You have to have more sunlight and more warmth and more time. You need it. It benefits the plant. The more, the better. Here's some tomatoes I tried to grow in the shade. Okay, and there's my roof, and it's about 11 foot to the top of the roof from the root. And those plants had a good root system, and they went looking for the sun. And they went 14 feet and never found it, so guess what happened? No tomatoes. No tomatoes. There's no fruit if there's not enough sun. If there's roots, the sun benefits the plants, but if there's no root, then here's what the sun does to the plant. Here's a plant that I planted that the worm cut off the root. And that the sun came out, and what should benefit the plant harmed the plant. Now what does the sun represent in this passage? Look at verse 20. This is what's good for you. This is what's good for you and I if we have Jesus and we have the root inside of us. This is something that helps us. But he that receives the seed in stony places, the same he that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it. Verse 21, Yet hath no root in himself, but dureth for a while. And when tribulation, underline it, or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended. And that doesn't mean that he invented his own enemies and became a victim like Jesse Smollett. That means he stopped following Jesus. Offended means you turn away and stop following, you quit. So, what did the Son equal? What was the Son? What was the good thing? Tribulation and persecution. If you have a root, then guess what is good for you? Tribulation and persecution. Confirming the souls of the disciples and exhorting them that they must, through much tribulation, enter the kingdom of God. We know that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope. And hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost. Rejoicing in hope, patience in tribulation. Persecution. All that live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. You know, persecution has always benefited the church. You know why the church left Jerusalem and went around the world? Because of persecution. Read the book of Acts. Blessed are you when men shall revile you and persecute you. Say all manner of evil against you falsely. Now look at Mark chapter 4, 17. So we have two words. What does the sun represent? Persecution and tribulation. Let's grab another word. Mark 4, 17. It says, And they have no root in themselves, but so endure for a time, and afterward, when affliction or persecution arises for the word's sake, immediately they're defended. Affliction, you can write down 2 Corinthians 4, 17. Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more and exceeding eternal weight of glory. Luke 8, 13. Go to Luke 8, 13. Let's get another word. Tribulation, persecution, affliction. In verse 13, Luke 8, 13. on the rock are they which they hear, receive the Word with joy, and these have no root, which for a while believe in the time of temptation." Fall away. So temptation. Paul said, to the Galatians, my temptation that was in the flesh you didn't despise. And then he called it a thorn, and he said it was given to me lest I should be exalted above measure. And he said I was made strong through that weakness. James 1, 2 said count it all joy when you fall into diverse temptations, knowing the trying of your faith worketh patience and patience experience. But now we have Christians that look at these things as bad. Right? Pray for so-and-so. They just got saved and they're having some problems, and I just pray that they don't quit on God because of this tribulation. No. No, no, no. That's the Son. That is the Son. It only is scary if there's no root. Being scared about Christians that go through persecution and tribulation is like being scared of the Son for your plan. It's the same thing. If there's a root, it's a good thing. So-and-so got saved and went home, and their mom and dad said, you know what? Since you want Jesus, we don't want you. Good. It doesn't sound good, does it? It doesn't feel good, does it? But the Bible says that those things are good. That's the sun that comes up. If there's a root, it's a good thing. Don't worry. reading a book about a Chinese man that got saved. And Tandem and Square, he was part of those those riots in the 1989. And he got saved through that through miraculous circumstance. And when he went to this prestigious college, he had five roommates, and one of them was a young man named Timothy. And when he got there, he gave Timothy a Bible, and Timothy said, I don't believe this. And then he came to the room one time, Timothy's crying, and he said, let's take a walk. His girlfriend had dumped him, and he shared the Lord with him, and he made a profession of faith. A week later, the Chinese man got arrested for passing out gospel tracts with his number on the back. He got arrested, and while he was in the interrogation room, they went to his dorm, ransacked his dorm, arrested his four roommates, and he saw them in the interrogation room next to him. When all that was over, he went back and his roommates didn't want to talk to him, and he went to sleep and he laid his head on his pillow, and under the pillow was that Bible. And Timothy, and he gave it back, and he said, you know, I might have been emotional. I don't know what was come over me. But he said, I don't need something in my life that causes me problems with the government. It's not worth it. You know what that was? That was the sun that was coming up to grow him. But it appears that there's no root, and I'll never know. But it appears that there was no root. And then lastly, this would take a couple seconds, if I can have the piano player come. It represents a slothful character. You have to get the rocks out. You have to get the rocks out. When I was a child, me and my mom and dad, we'd grow a little garden, and there were a lot of rocks in it, so my mom would dig the dirt out, and she'd put it in a milk crate. You know what a milk crate is? And we would go like this, and the big rocks would come out. We'd put them to the side, and then my dad would shovel it onto a screen, and we would sift it, and then we'd get the little rocks out. And it was a lot of work. And you know what you need to do? You need to find out what in your heart, what are the big things that are preventing God's Word from taking root in my heart and producing fruit. Start there. Get those things out. What are they? Ask the Lord, what is it that prevents me from bearing the fruit you want to receive? And then go to the little things and sift them out. You know, remember Lazarus? They had to move the stone away so the Word of God could get down there and call him forth. Remember that? Remember in Genesis when they would come to a well and the first thing that had to happen is they had to take the stone off the mouth of the well to get the water? You know what we need to do? We need to get the stones and the rocks out so the Lord Jesus Christ can do the work and the Word of God can take root and do what he's trying to accomplish in our life. Let's bow our head and close your eyes and think about this. Jesus, when He died on the cross, the rocks burst, they rent, they broke. He can melt the heart of stone. What is it? Where is the stony place in your heart? Lord, I thank You, Father, so much, Father, for this time that we've had together. Thank you for your word. Lord, thank you for what you accomplish through your word, Father. And I just pray, Father, that whoever this message is meant for, whether here or online, Lord, I just pray, Father, that you would have your way in the hearts here. In Jesus' name, amen. Let's stand.