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From the Pulpit is a weekly rebroadcasting of Dr. Mike Barnett's most recent sermon at First Baptist Church in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. Dr. Mike has been expositing the Word of God, verse by verse, for over 30 years. He has pastored churches in Texas, Louisiana, and has faithfully served FBCOS since January of 2001.
00:00:02 Michael Barnett
And everybody sing, Amen. Lord, thank you for that. That's one of my favorite songs about the power of the cross. I've seen those things happen. God change homes. I want to also say before I begin to preach from Matthew 13, as you turn your Bibles there, it's good to be home. There's no place like home. Tracy and I traveled a little bit, preached a few times. Over there in North Louisiana, and saw some friends that we hadn't seen in 20 or even 25 years. It was great to see old friends. One young man—he's older than he was then, which is natural—came up to me and introduced his two sons to me that he didn't have when I left there. He said, "Thank you for telling my daddy about Jesus. He's in heaven now."
00:01:01 Michael Barnett
Thank you. Telling him about Jesus, and that makes it all work. Amen and amen. It's good to be home, and I'd rather preach right here, First Baptist, than anywhere else. I'd rather sing with you and worship with you than anywhere else in the world. And I'm so glad to be here. Matthew 13. I want to read a. Just the introduction to this verse and give you a little bit of explanation before we go forward, because we are in a new section of the Gospel of Matthew, and I want to give you some understanding of where we are and what's going on in the ministry of Jesus. Matthew chapter 13, verse 1: The same day, went Jesus out of the house and sat by the seaside, and great multitudes.
00:01:59 Michael Barnett
Now let me pause right there. Go back through the Gospel of Matthew, especially with chapter. Maybe start chapter four, if you want to really get some insight into what's happening in Matthew, and circle the word 'multitudes.' That is an important word that we're going to see come to life in chapter fourteen and fifteen. But right now we're in chapter thirteen. And great multitudes were gathered together unto him, so that he went into a ship and sat, and the whole multitude stood on the shore. And he spake many things unto them in parables. In parables. Notice chapter verse one of this great chapter, and verse two.
00:02:56 Michael Barnett
Speaks of a multitude gathering unto him. This time he goes into a boat. Maybe he's pushed out a little from the shore, and he sits down. If you think about it for a moment, you'll realize that sounds very, very familiar. The last time we saw something like this, the Bible says, in seeing the multitudes, he went into a mountain or onto a mountainside, and when he was set.
00:03:26 Michael Barnett
His disciples came unto him, and he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. And He gave us the Sermon on the Mount, a point blank, direct, in your face preaching of the Word of God and explanation of the Law of God. By the time He finished, every person in that multitude, including His disciples right before Him, knew they were sinners and knew they needed a Savior. He just hit them.
00:04:23 Michael Barnett
He just hit 'em broadside. There was no ambiguity at all. He was right on target. He hit 'em hard. Amen. What we call raw bone preaching—just getting out, shucking the corner. Amen. Like I used to do when I was young. He just got at it. But now, after dealing with multitudes upon multitudes, which were mostly perhaps the same crowd, because all this took place in Galilee. Jesus didn't go to Jerusalem, but once or twice until later, when he would have his Judean ministry. But here's his Galilean ministry, and he had these multitudes always around him, healing them, preaching, teaching, gathering around, bringing people to him, doing some miraculous thing.
00:05:17 Michael Barnett
But now he changes his method. He changes the way he does things. That's kind of scary because it might tell us that Jesus might not have been a Baptist. He changed. He changed his method. I'm just kidding. He was a Baptist. He had a Baptist by the name of John say, 'Here he is.' But now he begins to preach and teach in parables, stories, common occurrences that happen every day, in which he relates and then has.
00:06:14 Michael Barnett
It has a spiritual meaning. He starts to preach in parables, and chapter thirteen is a record of seven parables of Jesus. They are called the parables of the mysteries of the kingdom. A mystery is something that is hidden and must be revealed to us by the Holy Spirit. That's what a mystery is. A mystery is something there is no way at all for us to understand, for us to grasp, for us to get, unless God says this is what it's about to us, to you and me. And He starts telling us the mystery, telling the multitudes.
00:07:11 Michael Barnett
The mysteries of the kingdom in parables, and the first one he gives is a familiar parable. If you've spent one or two days in Sunday school, this is familiar. It's called the parable of the sower. Some people call it the parable of the soils. Others call it the parable of the seed. I prefer to call it the parable of the sower because that's what Jesus himself called it. He's the one who gave it. I'm going to stick with him. The parable of the sower. And so, let's read. Now you got a picture here. It is the multitudes are out there. The multitude. There's I don't know how many. Let's say thousands of people, hundreds of people. There's a multitude around, and his disciples are right there. And it says that he spake many things unto them in parables, saying, 'Behold, a sower.'
00:08:11 Michael Barnett
Went forth to sow, and when he sowed some seeds, fell by the wayside, and the fowls came and devoured them. Some fell upon stony places, where they were had not much earth, and forthwith they sprung up because they had no deepness of earth. And when the sun was up, they were scorched, and because they had no root, they withered away. And some fell among thorns, and thorns sprung up and choked them. But other fell into good ground and brought forth fruit. Some a hundred folds, some sixty folds, some thirty. Who have ears to hear, let him hear. And then he's done. He quits preaching. He doesn't want to. He just tells them, describes to them something they have probably seen day by day in that agricultural land. And then he's done. And.
00:09:10 Michael Barnett
He goes off later by himself, and we have verse ten. The disciples come to him and say, 'Why do you speak in parables?' And basically, he says to them, 'I speak in parables for two reasons. Number one, to reveal, because to you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom, but not to them. So I speak in parables.' And I'm preaching in parables right now about the mysteries of the kingdom to do two things: to reveal and to conceal. I am not going to reveal truth to them. Now we've already dealt with this when we preached the sermon not too long ago on how to understand the word of God. But let me give you a little background of what's been going on. Why we came to this point where Jesus switches gears and is no longer forthright in your face with the Sermon on the Mount. Now he's teaching in parables.
00:10:06 Michael Barnett
Because if you might recall that after the Sermon on the Mount, straightforward preaching, we then come to verses eight and chapters eight and nine, and we have affirmation. We have those miracles where Jesus is saying, "Yes, I am God. I'm doing things in chapter eight, nine that only God can do to prove to you that what I just preached in Matthew five, six, and seven is words from God." So affirmation. He gives them that affirmation. Then, in chapter ten, he sends out his disciples to go preach the word of God, commission. And then, chapter eleven and twelve, we see instances and examples of how individuals in the multitude receive the word of God. They rejected it. Some were indifferent.
00:10:59 Michael Barnett
Some said, 'Well, we need a little more. We're insatiable. We want the emotion. We want the sign.' And they were insatiable. And Jesus said, 'You're not going to get a sign except for my resurrection.' And then some went so far in their rejection that they said, 'He's passing out demons by the power of Satan.' And Jesus said, 'You have blasphemed the Holy Spirit.' You have rejected the urgency of the Holy Spirit He's put in your heart. Therefore, you will never be saved, and those people are condemned to this day. And that is a sin we must take note of. You can reject and reject so much that finally Jesus says the Holy Spirit's done, and there's no forgiveness for you. That's what happens, and that's what happened in chapter eleven and twelve. And so, in terms of the rejection of chapter.
00:11:53 Michael Barnett
Eight, nine, and ten. Nine and ten. Jesus, eleven and twelve. Jesus comes now in chapter thirteen, and says, "I'm hiding truth from them, but I'm revealing truth to those who have ears to hear." And so, the question of the hour right now is, "Do you have ears to hear?" Because if you have an ear. Hear. Notice what verse nine says: Let them hear. If you have an ear that's sensitive to the word of God, because of a sensitive heart, and you want to hear the word of God and understand, Jesus said, "I will let you understand, but I will not."
00:12:52 Michael Barnett
Going to cast my pearls before swine and throw holy meat to dogs. Remember that, and that's what he's saying in chapter 13. It indicates that the multitude, if not all of them individually, most of them didn't have an ear to hear. Notice right after Jesus gave this parable in verses three through nine, nobody walked up to him. Nobody from the multitude walked up to him and said, 'Jesus, we kind of get this that the soil went out to see, but what does that have to do with us? I grew up on a farm. I remember going out and sowing the seed. I remember that. I remember those different soils that see, but Lord.'
00:13:50 Michael Barnett
That doesn't mean anything to me. Tell me what you're trying to say. What do you want to say to me? What are you teaching me by telling me about a sower that went out to sow? Not one of the multitude is recording doing that. So Jesus, what does he do? He finishes giving that parable and he goes to the house. He leaves, and the Bible says.
00:14:20 Michael Barnett
His disciples came in, sat down with him, and said, 'Why are you speaking to them in parables?' And then Jesus gives that answer to reveal and to conceal, because you have a heart, or you have an ear to hear; they do not. You have an ear to hear; they don't. Verse eighteen. It's not to the multitude; it's to his disciples who prove that they have an ear to hear. Listen, folks. How do you know you have an ear to hear? And God's gonna let you hear it and understand it. Let me tell you what you got to do. If you have an ear to hear the word of God, and you hear the word of God preached, you hear it talked, or you read it in your Bible, and you don't quite understand it, and you're kind of scratching your head.
00:15:18 Michael Barnett
What does God do? What is this telling me about Himself? And you're wondering if you have an ear to hear. You're gonna say, I want to go and get some teaching from this, so I'm gonna go the author of the book and ask him what he meant. And you go the Lord in prayer. God show me. In your words, show me what this means. Show me what this reveals about you. Show me what this text indicates about Jesus and my walk with Him, and help me to learn from it and apply it to my life. If you have an ear to hear, you're going to go pray. You're going to go pray and ask God the author. Isn't it wonderful? We can ask the author.
00:16:12 Michael Barnett
I'm reading at night. How many of you have nighttime reading that you read and it helps you sleep? Anybody? You say, well, preacher, we just turn your sermons on, but that's fine. If you want to say that, God's gonna get you. But anyway, I'm reading a big old thick book now. It's the biography of Ulysses S. Grant. And some chapters and sections are so interesting, and I'm learning so much and just enjoying reading, but a lot. Good night, eleven. I read it at night so I can go to sleep. Amen. So sometimes I don't have an ear to hear, and sometimes I wish I could write the author of that book, and I can't. All I do is go to the publisher and send a letter to the author and ask him to explain something more fully. Isn't it wonderful? We can go to the author of the book.
00:17:11 Michael Barnett
And say, 'Help me out here, Lord! Help, help me out here, Holy Spirit! You inspired these words. I need some illumination.' And you pray and confess your sin. You ask God what's hindering you from understanding it, and commit to apply it. You, like Isaiah said before he heard the word of God, said, 'Here am I.' And you commit yourself to obedience to He'll show you what it means. It might be in a sermon. You might call somebody who has some insight, or He might just boom show it to you right then and there. That's what His disciples did. The multitude individuals didn't do it. The disciples did, and so Jesus said in verse eighteen, 'I'm going to let you hear. I'm going to let you understand what I meant by that parable.' And this is what He goes on to say, verse eighteen: 'Hear ye therefore the parable of the.'
00:18:04 Michael Barnett
When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and understandeth not, then comes the wicked one and catches away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which receives seed by the wayside. But he that received the seed in the stony places, the same as he that hears the word, and anon a joy receives it. Yet hath he not root in himself, but endures for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arise because of the word, by and by he is abundant. He also that received seed among the thorns is he that hears the word and the care of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful. But he that receives seed in good ground is he that hears the word and understands it, which also beareth fruit and bringeth forth some a hundredfold, some sixty.
00:19:03 Michael Barnett
Some thirty, his disciples came and said, 'Lord, we do have ears to hear.' He said, 'I know you do. I'm going to let you understand what I was teaching you,' and he explained. He says the sower. He said the sower is somebody out there casting out the word of God. It's perhaps the Lord Himself, Jesus Himself.
00:19:33 Michael Barnett
In this case, giving out the word of God through His servants. You hear the word of God, that's somebody sowing it, just broadcasting it. The word of God, the seed is the word of the kingdom. The word of God is the message of repentance and salvation. It's the message of faith toward God through Christ Jesus. It's the message of saving grace.
00:20:04 Michael Barnett
To a greater extent, as you move down and up in your spiritual life, it is instruction in Christian living. It is the seed of the Word of God that grows within your heart, and then the soil. He describes four kinds of soils. In verse 19, he he talks about the. The soil that falls on the wayside, where people walk, where the ground is hard. I I worked on a farm as a tractor hand in in middle school and high school. That's what I did. Drove a John Deere. Thank God for John Deere. It had an air conditioner and a stereo.
00:20:58 Michael Barnett
I remember sitting up in that tractor all day long every day. Some during harvest time it was every day, late into the night. And I listened to those old-time radio preachers and loved that air conditioning. I wish I could say I had a plow and a mule, but I'm not that old and it wouldn't work for this illustration.
00:21:29 Michael Barnett
But on those fields, what you had was rows of cotton or grain or corn or whatever we were dealing with, and around that field you had what was called a turning row, and that's where you would turn around and go back up the field, and then turn around and go back again. The turning row was a row, and the farmers who had enough money to hire a guy like me were called windshield farmers. Y'all know what a windshield farmer is? It's a farmer who sits in the windshield in his truck watching everybody else through the windshield. He would ride down those turning roads checking all his fields because it was hard ground. Nothing could grow there. It wasn't plowed. It wasn't dis. It wasn't prepared, and nothing could grow there. It had a hard callousness to it.
00:22:28 Michael Barnett
And it's much like if you remember from chapters eleven and twelve, those indignant people who just flat-footed rejected the word of God, although they knew different. And then Jesus said, I talked about another. So I talked about rocky soil, verses twenty through twenty-one. This was soil that might have had that much topsoil, or so, just enough for a seed of corn to root out just a little bit, but not too deep below that was a bed of rock, a bedrock, and those roots would grow for a while, and they would hit that rock and nowhere else to go, and that soil would get dry in the heat, and the roots had nowhere to go down to get water in the depths of the earth.
00:23:23 Michael Barnett
And so they would just drive up and down rocky soil. It seemed to me like, as I read that, said, 'Lord, show me something.' He said, 'Well, you done preach through chapter eleven and twelve? Don't you remember those people who said, 'Give us a sign. We want some excitement. We want some emotion.' And they got excited about being planted, and they got excited about a little rain. But ere long they just hit a rock and it wasn't going any further, and the excitement and emotions and fireworks just faded away. Not like those people. And then Jesus talked about the thorny soil in verse twenty-two, choked out by the world. One of the most terrible.
00:24:18 Michael Barnett
Times of the year was late June after grain harvest and early July before cotton harvest down there. And he would say, "I want to keep you boys working." And I said, "Yes, sir, we want to work." I did it every year, and I should have learned, but I didn't. He said, "Get you a gallon water jug, put ice in it. You don't need water because your ice is going to melt, and you can drink melted ice." Here's a hoe. We'd even drop us off in a cotton field and said, "I want you to take out the Johnson grass." And we'd go up and down. And I'm gonna tell you something. Those rows got longer the more I stayed out there. But the ice didn't melt, and I had plenty to drink. Chopping that Johnson grass because it clogged up the machines, choke out cotton if it got too.
00:25:15 Michael Barnett
Concentrate. So I thought about these thorny people, and then verse 22. I thought about the people that Jesus said, I preach to these folks. I've done all these miracles. These cities of Capernaum and Caesarea, they've seen all my work, heard all my preaching. And they've never been impacted. It just goes in one ear and out the other. They are the indifferent people. And you can go back and listen to those messages from chapter eight, nine, and you can see all those types of people that rejected the word of God and rejected Christ. They were the indignant. They were the insatiable, and they were just indifferent. Three groups of people, and that's how people are today.
00:26:12 Michael Barnett
There's always going to be people who get mad at the word of God. That's the hard, callous soil. It corrects them. It convicts them. They don't like it. Then you have the rocky soil. They're always going to want something flashy, something new. They're going to want to be quicken out, like seed in that rocky soil. And then there's the most people today. They don't have eternity on their minds. They're just going to let this world and all this going on their job, their kids, their sports, their entertainment. They just want to enjoy life and live the American dream. And that form of this culture in this world is just going to choke out the Word of God, and they're never going to be saved unless they get rid of it all or put Jesus first. But thanks be unto God, He didn't stop there. He talked about the good soil.
00:27:08 Michael Barnett
And he says, 'But verse twenty-three, totally different from rocky soil, hard soil, and thorny soil. Totally different, a totally different kind of person, a totally different heart. But he that receives seed into the good ground is he that has ears to hear.' They're pricked by the Holy Spirit, and they want to know more. They don't write it off. They don't pass it off. They don't walk away from it. They say, 'God, tell me more. I want to hear more.' And Jesus lets them hear more and understands it. He says, 'Those are the kind that the Word of God takes root and gets deeper and deeper, and they begin to bear fruit.' That's the Christian. That's the one who's saved.
00:28:04 Michael Barnett
One out of four—that's the one who sinned. Notice we read here where it says something very interesting here. It says some bore fruit that was hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. We've got to remember that there's different levels of fruit. I was saved in a Christian home when I was a young boy. My mom and daddy saw to it that I was under the word of God all of my life. Folks, we didn't miss sitting under the word of God.
00:29:02 Michael Barnett
Sometimes my daddy took me to church. Sometimes he drugged me to church to sit under the word of God. But he always led me to church, my brother and sister. And some of you are like that. And it's only natural that your fruit is going to be—you're going to have a whole lot of fruit in your life. But some folks didn't have that privilege.
00:29:32 Michael Barnett
And they come out of different backgrounds, and the level of their fruit may be different than the level of the fruit of somebody who grows up in this building. But that's okay because there's fruit, amen. So let me give you three things about the fruit that you will bear for Christ if the seed of the Word of God takes in. Number one. Fruit is evident. It's seen. Fruit is evidence. The wayside soil never produced fruit. You walked out there, and there was a seed laying on the ground.
00:30:26 Michael Barnett
Tomorrow you go back out and there's seed laying on the ground. Two weeks later you go out there and what is there on the ground? There's no fruit. There's a lot of folks like that. It's just seed laying on the ground. They never produce the fruit of the Holy Spirit. They never have produced in them the fruit of Christ. They never have the passions of Christ. They're just some seed laid on the ground. They've heard it all their day, but notice another thing about the fruit: it is enduring, as opposed to the rocky soil where it really looks good and everybody gets excited. But all of a sudden, here comes the heat, here comes the heavy rain, and it washes that topsoil away, and that fruit doesn't last. What was it? It was just the show.
00:31:23 Michael Barnett
It was just a fancy. It was just a whim. It was just a vain attempt. It wasn't real fruit produced by the Holy Spirit because it wasn't enduring. Let me share something with you folks. Whatever the Holy Spirit does in you, it's forever. It's forever. Just like His Word will endure forever, you who have been born of the Spirit will last forever, and that fruit will last forever. And then the fruit is exponential. It's exponential. It just keeps going and growing, and there's more and more every year. A Christian grows. Living things grow. You say, well preacher, just right now I don't even feel like I'm thirty.
00:32:22 Michael Barnett
I don't know why you might feel like that. Fruit is fruit, amen. And some people have battles that have been put upon them through life that others may not have. So don't get down on yourself. Fruit is fruit, amen. Remember windshield farming? I remember what I'm talking about. I never saw him get out of the truck and cut off a stalk of grain and measure it against another stalk of grain and throw one out. He wanted it all. He wanted all in the elevators in the silos. He wanted it all, and we better get it all. And so, fruit is fruit. You might have a lot to overcome, and the Holy Spirit's helping you. Fruit is fruit.
00:33:20 Michael Barnett
Don't be discouraged. Let me share something with you. He says thirty, a hundred, sixty, and thirty. Let's say a believer right now is only bearing tenfold, but it's fruit. Did you know one? Seed of corn. You plant one seed of corn, and it grows up into a stalk of corn. You know what I'm talking about? I hope you're not all city five because you don't understand. Kind of got to have it. Kind of got to bear with me. One seed of corn grows into a stalk. If that stalk of corn only produces one ear of corn.
00:34:19 Michael Barnett
On that ear will be four hundred to eight hundred kernels of corn. You are bearing fruit. If you're bearing fruit, you're bearing a lot more fruit than you think you are. So be encouraged. You have already overcome the hard, callous heart, or you've already overcome that idea that you want something spectacular, and you finally realized it's not about the spectacular firecracker. It's about the steady work of the Holy Spirit, and you got to get in the furrow. And you've been planted, so stay put. And the thorns of this world—you had enough.
00:35:13 Michael Barnett
Conviction to make a decision for Jesus, despite the world that was pulling you away, despite the flesh that was telling you this is idiocy, and despite the devil's word, you are bearing more fruit than you think you are. And if you want to bear more, that's a sure sign that you are seated by the Holy Spirit. I've never met a Christian who said, 'I have grown enough.' Produce, and matter of fact, somebody tells me that I'm gonna say, 'Buddy, just wait till the heat gets on. You're gonna wither down.' So that's it. That's the parable. So that's what he's teaching us. So these seven parables give us.
00:36:12 Michael Barnett
Seven lessons on what to expect in this day and age. That's what these seven. This first one teaches us a lesson. Next week, the Lord willing, as we preach on the tares and weeding the tares, we'll learn another lesson. There's seven lessons of how it's going to be in this dispensation of time, from the time that Christ.
00:36:42 Michael Barnett
Preached this sermon, the Sermon on the Mount. Lived among men, was crucified, dead and buried, and rose again. To the time he returns and establishes his physical, literal kingdom on earth. Now in this church age, what are we to expect to happen? Seven things. Number one. We learn today not everyone who hears the gospel will be saved. As a matter of fact, more will remain lost than are saved. If the numbers are right. Not everyone will be saved. But let me ask you three questions before we go. Three questions. Number one: Are you sowing the seed?
00:37:38 Michael Barnett
Jesus said, 'I came so as to see, as my Father has sent me. So send I you.' Is there somebody that you know who needs to be saved right now? Not ten years from now, not thirty years from now, not somebody who's not even born. I'm talking about somebody you know who needs to receive Christ as Savior and be born again today, right now.
00:38:08 Michael Barnett
Are you sowing the seed into their lives? I'm talking about the seed of the gospel of Christ. I'm not talking about some little plea. I'm talking about the seed of the gospel. You share with them how to be saved in the power of the Holy Spirit. Let me give you a promise from God's Word, Psalm 126: They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth rejoicing. He that goeth forth in weeping, bearing precious seed—the word of God, the gospel—shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him. God says, "You have a broken heart. You have a broken heart for somebody who needs to be saved." And I want to share something with you. We need to learn to pray.
00:39:04 Michael Barnett
This is a prayer, God. When I pray for the lost people on my list every morning, I pray that the devil will not snatch the word of God away. I pray that for you every Sunday morning, when I get up and have my prayer time. I pray for you every Sunday morning that what I preach today you'll remember tomorrow morning. The devil won't snatch the word away, or it won't fall on a callous heart. It won't go in one ear and out the other. You'll receive it and not trample it underfoot like a swine does pearls. You'll consider it the word of God and take it to heart and say, Lord, I have an ear to hear. Teach me more. Teach me how to apply it. You have to pray that. Are you praying for somebody?
00:39:55 Michael Barnett
That the gospel message will not be taken from them, that will impact them, and they'll think about it. The Holy Spirit will be heavy upon them in conviction and convincing them of the need to be saved. They can be saved, and how to be saved. Are you praying for somebody to not be a wayside soul, a rocky soul, or a thorny soul? Is there somebody you're praying for?
00:40:22 Michael Barnett
I might add one other thing. I pray for when I pray for the lost to be saved is Jesus talked about a strong man having to bind the strong man before you can go into the house and take the house. You got to bind the strong man. I pray the strong man will be bound in people, whatever it may be—a pet sin, pride, some hurt, some misunderstanding, something in their life that's keeping them from committing to Christ, whatever it may be. That's a strong man that's going to drag to hell unless they get saved. Praying that God would bind the strong man, and the seed will fall on a soft soil. And I want to tell you something else too about the soil, praying for the soil. It is broadcast the seed, broadcast everywhere.
00:41:19 Michael Barnett
We don't judge the soils. Someone needs to be saved; they need to hear the gospel. What they do with it will reveal the type of soil they are. But that's the work of God in their life. So sow it broadcast. Third thing: How do you respond to the Word of God? Do you understand this? Remember. The theme here is having an ear to hear, and God letting you hear. How do you respond to the Word of God? Do you understand this parable? How do you know if you understand it? Is the Word of God a life-changing book for you? Are you learning life lessons for glorifying Christ in your daily walk when you hear?
00:42:19 Michael Barnett
Or talk, or read the pages of the Bible, or does it just have no spiritual impact whatsoever? Just something to check off, in one ear, out the other. It doesn't affect you whatsoever. You'll never think of it again until it's brought up in another Bible study or another sermon. You understand it, but you really don't understand it until you do it, until you apply. Because the Bible is quick and powerful, sharper than a two-edged sword; it changes your life. And so, if you really do understand this and grasp this idea that Jesus gives us here, this truth rather than Jesus gives us here—that you can be good soil and receive the Word of God, and He will let you receive it. If you'll ask Him and open your heart, He'll let you receive it. You need to be thankful.
00:43:17 Michael Barnett
Folks, if you understand John three sixteen, if you understand Genesis one, you need to be thankful that the grace of God has illuminated His Word to you. Because this book is has nothing to do with your intellect in being able to understand it. It is spiritually discerned. And it's not understood in the realm of the natural. You may know dates and times and names and places and events and Bible stories, but when it really impacts your life is when you really understand it and you apply its principles in the power of the Holy Spirit. That's when you got it, and you need to thank God that you got it because He gave it to you. You must hear it. Want more of it? Ask God's wisdom and help with it.
00:44:08 Michael Barnett
And then do it. The lesson: not everyone who hears the gospel will be saved. But that doesn't hinder us from sharing the gospel, so they see it. We got to keep doing that. Amen. Not everyone who hears the gospel will be saved. Not everyone will accept Christ as Savior, but you can today. You can today. You can be the good soldier. Ask God to let it take root today. Let's bow in prayer.