Bible Teaching

Calvary Temple Teaching Library

Holy Ground Pt.3

Some good news from Africa. We'll just share as God is continuing to move in the fellowship there. The Nairobi church - it says, "Ron was teaching out of Ephesians 4 on the edifying of the body and the perfecting of the saints, relationship and body ministry, the need for sound doctrine. He said a number of the people staying afterwards just continued to remark on the standard of the ministry, the care and true pastoral oversight with no compromise. Rejoicing in the good things that God is doing. Had a number of first time visitors. The sanctuary was comfortably full and a number of zealous young men desiring to work." So the ministry is growing there. Just continue to pray.

They had an evangelistic meeting in Kayole, and James and Ezekiel were singing. They had about 50 or 75 that gathered around the corner there and he preached on the calling of the Lord and a said a number were ministered to. Karen was sharing with some folks out on the street corner, a lot of good ministry there.

He said the other day he was working on the van somewhere (I can't remember where it was) and he said he was leaning inside the back door of the van working along, and some guy just stopped and was talking to him. He didn't feel that he could take time to stop so he just talked to the guy as he was hanging in the van. So he said he was hanging in the van and just talking. He said this guy was asking some real, real good questions, so Tony said he just continued to speak with the man and answer the questions. Finally, he was going to change tools or something he was doing, he turned around and there were about twenty people standing there. And so, he said, he leaned back in the van and started working some more and just kept talking, and they were asking questions. And he said he stopped and there were about forty people so he turned around and started preaching. He preached for about another hour and there were a number of people that were reached who have come out to the fellowship. So some good things are going on. He said they had an evangelistic meeting, preaching. He said, "We prayed on with the people into dark, ministering to many of the needs. There were those that were sick and demon possessed and we were able to minister into the dark and are just rejoicing at the goodness of God. Charles called the other night rejoicing and thankful for the ministry that was taking place in Kakamega, and that which they had brought (they were up there for a few days), and he said that since then, the mid week services, the attendance on Wednesday nights, has doubled. The sanctuary is completely packed with people sitting outside the building and the good problem now of what to do for space." And the good news is, we just sent them--starting last week, I shared with them to send them a 20% increase in support for the ministry. Praise God for that, amen? That's significant. That will be enough to provide all of the building funds they need to extend the sanctuary. So that is going to be a substantial boost to them, and thanks to your faithfulness. You've just constantly given and prayed. So continue to pray and believe God, and in the giving it's meeting all of the needs there and God is being glorified.

The church in Eldoret--we're looking to send the guys up at least once a week into Eldoret to oversee the ministry that is going on--a unique situation in Eldoret. As you know, everybody is always wanting and asking for money, and this particular man said that he couldn't find anywhere a biblical standard that was being held like that which we brought. He said, in all of his years he's never seen it. He left the oversight of the Christian radio station, the largest one in the country is my understanding, or up in that area anyway, and went full time in the ministry. Paying for it out of his own pocket, over $500 a month. To give you an example, here, of the difference, that would be like those of you who are making about $150,000 a year walking away from that and paying at least $3,000 or $4,000 a month out of your own pocket to continue in this ministry. And he said, "I just need your oversight." We haven't committed to him yet. He's come to us and said, "You people know the Word of God, you live the Word of God, you require the Word of God," so we required it of him and then he disappeared for a few weeks, and he's back, praise God. And he said, "I can't run from it. It's the truth." So, it's one thing to be able to say, "Amen, I just love the standard you all hold," and then you're held to the standard. But praise God, he's sitting there and he took the purging, and he's back, and he said, "I need what you all have." So, it's an exciting thing to watch. Continue to pray for the ministry. His name is Ben, Benjamin, in Eldoret, and he's in need of our prayers and is just excited about what God is doing.

Let's turn to Mark, chapter 4. We want to continue on the parable of the sower and see what the Lord has to say to us concerning our lives and preparation for the coming of the Lord. This great parable, of course the Lord said, "If you can understand the truth of this parable then you'll be able to understand all parables." Now remember why He spoke to the people in parables: so that those who were spiritually alive could know the wisdom and the mind of God, and those that are the religious hypocrites, unable to draw upon the wisdom and the power of God, would continue in their folly. Now, the sad thing was at this part of their lives they weren't able to understand. They said, "Lord, we don't understand the parable, could you expound it to us?" And he said, "Yes, I will. But remember this one principle..." As you read the Matthew 13 part of this passage--and we find it in Matthew 13, Mark 4, and Luke 8, and they are all a little bit different, so you want to read all of the accounts and meditate upon them, and in the Matthew 13 account he said, (you've got to remember this principle also), "For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath [and given to that one that does]" (Matthew 13:12).

He's speaking of the Jews, and He's speaking of the things that they had received, the blessing, and the covenant. Romans asks, what advantage is there to being a Jew? Paul says in Romans, "Much in every way, to us was given the oracles of God." They were the ones that had the covenants that were established, a great advantage. But then, the Scripture makes it very clear that they were removed, weren't they, and another vine grafted in. Let's not make the same mistake ourselves, of people who have partaken of the wisdom of God and the presence of God and the power of God, into thinking that we won't be removed and someone else grafted in who is willing to be a doer of the Word and not just a hearer.

So, that is part of what Jesus is saying to them in this parable. "Listen, I'm going to bring a standard to you that you are going to have to adhere to, and if you refuse, then everything you do have will be taken from you and given to somebody that will do the Word of God." That will cause you to understand all the wisdom of God and how we approach true Bible doctrine. It's not by hearing, it's by doing and it's by obedience. The tragedy today is that in most Christian churches people are mistaking obedience for works. "Well, we're saved by grace, and we're saved by faith, and we're not to get into works." No, we're not, but we are to be a people obedient to the commandments of God. Obedience is not works. Obedience is the expression of the presence of God in our lives, and the fruit of spiritual character being evidenced. So, it is very important that we understand the difference.

Now, Mark 4. Let's pick up where we were on Sunday and see what the Lord has to say to us tonight. We left off on Sunday night--you remember, we were talking about breaking up the fallow ground and how this is not something that is not easy to do. It's a very difficult thing and we have to rise up early and seek the Word of God. The Scripture says those that seek Him early--we have the mandate, of course, given to us--will find Him. When we seek Him with all of our heart, the Scripture makes it clear that as we draw nigh to Him, He will draw nigh to us. And so the breaking up of the fallow ground is our responsibility, it's not God's responsibility to break it up within us. He said as we seek Him He is going to then rain righteousness upon us.

As we ended in the Sunday night teaching, we were talking a little bit about the need to strive to enter in at the strait gate. We talked out of Philippians that we were to fully extend ourselves in the pursuit of God's righteousness. And so, the breaking up of the fallow ground is when we find ourselves being seduced and sedated by the cares of the world, and in our lives we begin to see that the Word doesn't affect us as readily as it once did. There's not a love for the Word, there's not a quick adherence to doing the Word of God, and in fact, we saw that the fallow ground was what? Hearing the Word but understanding it not, which meant we were not what? United with it. In other words, we were hearing the Word and then we were going to consider how much of that we were going to do. And we shared with you in the parable, then, that the person that approaches the Word of God that way, Satan will come immediately and remove the seed, or the Word, out of your heart. This Word is not for our consideration, it's for our absolute surrender and obedience, and every one of us here has the capacity to read this Bible and know what God is expecting of us. So, when we come to some of the different areas that we talk about like taking up the cross and following Him, forsaking mothers and fathers and houses and lands, we say, "I don't understand that." Yes, you understand it. You're just not willing to do it. And Jesus said if you don't, you're not what? Worthy of Me.

When we look at this parable of the fallow ground, we so often apply it to evangelism and think, "Well, it's just talking about those who are hearing the gospel for the first time and they're dull of hearing, and because of that, then, because they reject the gospel, Satan will remove it from their lives." Not so. As you read Matthew 13 you can see the quotation out of the Matthew 13 version that is out of Isaiah the sixth chapter. And that sixth chapter of Isaiah, one that we're all very familiar with, the very short chapter in Isaiah is where God is speaking constantly that because of the covenant children's rejection of the Word of God, He was going to send them into judgment. It's interesting that He quotes this chapter here in Matthew 13. He's speaking to covenant people when He says these are a people that have wayward hearts, and it's very important for us to ascertain that.

Turn over to Isaiah for just a second. I wasn't going to do that, but let's go ahead and look real quickly so that you can see what I'm talking about. It will help us in our understanding of the necessity to hear the Word, let It enter in and be doers, so that we're not deceived. You all remember this sixth chapter, right? "In the year that King Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, [we all remember that passage] and his train filled the temple" (Isaiah 6:1). Beautiful passage, and we see the seraphim that are flying and crying "Holy, holy, holy," and then what is so important for us in being able to approach the majesty of God is that spirit of humility to where the prophet says in verse 5, "Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips." We speak of all of our positional rights in Jesus Christ, and they are factual, and to speak these things is the mandate of God. And we declare that we are the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ and to say anything less is to minimize the blood of Jesus and the work that He accomplished. Nevertheless, I want to tell you something. You can say you're the righteousness of God in Christ all you want, you can rejoice in your sonship and your heirship, praise God, and rejoice that you're an individual blessed coming in and going out, but I want to tell you something. When you encounter God in His full expression of glory, you'll fall on your face just like John did. You'll be undone, you'll be as a dead man, and you'll say, "I'm a man of unclean lips." This is how we approach the majesty of God.

When you come into this Bible, beloved, and you open it up, this is God in all of His majesty revealing Himself to us, and we cannot just casually flip through these pages and find things that we think will be a blessing to us, or things that will encourage us through this day, but we're to be seeking the presence of God in our lives, and the transformation of our lives into the glory of God every time we open this book.

And so Israel approached God in that way at one time and now their faith is waning. There's beginning to be a crusting of their hearts, a commonness of God's presence. We come into this place on a consistent basis and we come--many of us are here four or fives times a week for different Bible studies and prayer--and, oh, beloved, it can never become commonplace. Don't ever take it for granted and don't ever, don't ever lose sight of what it cost to give us access into the presence of God, the broken body of our Lord, the shed blood. And how thankful we are.

So the prophet says, "I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: [verse 5] for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts." And then something really neat happened. One of the seraphim goes over to the altar, he takes a coal from the altar, and he comes and he places it upon the lips of the prophet. And says in verse 7, "Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged. Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, [you see, here's what's always going to happen when you encounter God, '...and I heard the voice of the Lord, saying' what?] Whom shall I send..." "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel" (Mark 16:15). That's the mandate that's given to you and me.

You're going to find out, and how many of you have come to know that every time you draw with a sincere heart into the presence of God, what's the real issue? God deals with you concerning what? Our work in the Kingdom. He will always share with us, "I've got some more work to do. Are you willing to go? Are you willing to lay your life down?" I'm not talking about going to Africa. I'm not even talking about necessarily going out on the streets and evangelizing, though those are things that we all do. We share on the job, all of these things. That's part of our lives; thank God for it. But it can be in all kinds of different areas. Are we serving in our home properly as husband or as wife? Children, are we in our proper order in the home and obeying our parents in the Lord, etc? These are things that you're always going to hear when you encounter the presence of God. What more can I do? And He's going to say, "You really wanting to go?" "Yes. Here am I, send me."

Look what he says in verse 9, "And he said, Go." God will never turn down volunteers to go out into the highways and the byways and compel the lost to come. But there's more to the ministry than just the lost. You see, we think as Christians that our main goal is evangelizing, and it's really not. Our main goal is making disciples. And those that have heard, to see them discipled and conformed to the image of Jesus. Look who He's talking to. "Go." Who's He sending them to? Read the rest of the passage here and you'll see. It's the people of God who have backslidden. It's the people of God who have become fallow in their own lives. And He says, "I'm giving you a task that's really tough, and I want you to go to these self-righteous people, and I want you to go to these people that can answer you with the Bible and I want you to go to these people who have not current but past fruit and experiences to point to, who in fact in one day are going to stand before me and say, 'Lord, Lord, didn't we cast out our devils in your name?'" And He's going to say, "I never knew you." And He said, "These are the people I want you to go motivate; they've lost their first love." You see, that's the fallow ground, it's a person who's lost their first love. These are a people that have known the Lord but their lives have become crusted over through their own self-serving, and their own lordship. And those of you that are going to be used as vessels of God are many times going to face some great opposition. Remember, this is where we left off Sunday night at how to break up the fallow ground.

What I'm telling you is this: One of the ways your fallow ground is going to be broken up is by brothers and sisters coming and confronting you with the Word of God and, frankly, we don't like that. How many of you enjoy that? How many of you enjoy the fruit of it? Amen. "It was good for me to be afflicted." Yeah, but we don't think that while the affliction is going on. That's the testimony afterwards. It was good for me to have been afflicted. I lived, and I see the fruit, thank you Lord. But in the midst of it what are we doing? We're complaining and we're saying, "Well, who do you think you are?" We're looking for other places where we can go and hide where the Word of God is preached but not kept. This is part of the breaking up of the fallow ground. God is going to send prophets into your life that are going to speak the Word of the Lord and remind you what the tragic results will be if you don't listen.

Watch what he goes on to say. "Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed. Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate, And the Lord..." Isaiah is saying, "Lord, I'm getting weary of going and talking to these people and nobody will listen." And God said, "I'm the one closing their ears and their eyes because it's going to come back as judgment against them, but don't despair, there's a remnant out there to be reached, there's always a people that will hear."

Verse 13, "But yet in it shall be a tenth." Can you say praise God for that? Not everybody wants to hear what we have to share, but there's a tenth, praise God, there's a remnant. There's a people that will hear and be converted, and be changed, and that's who we're looking for. But you've got to sort through a bunch of junk to get there! And people are going to speak the name of Jesus, and they're going to do all of the religious things, and they're not going to really appreciate the word that you have to bring them, but there's a tenth, there's a remnant to be saved.

"...And it shall return..." We need to rejoice in the great promises of God. This remnant is not just Israel, as we were sharing, it's a remnant within the Church. There're many that are on the path, but few there be that find it, the Scripture says. On that broad path, are all of these people that say they are Christians and only a few of those, are going to find it? Many are going to say, "Lord, Lord" and He's going to say, "I never knew you, depart from me." "But didn't we cast out devils in your name? We healed the sick." "I never approved [is what that word 'knew' means] of what you did, because you did it for your own glory. You did it in your own strength." Like many of the very popular ministries today. It's tragic, but this is exactly what it is, so many of these people are moving and their faith is in their faith. Their faith is in their biblical formulas. Their faith is in their own soulical energy, but their faith is not in the Lord. And so we need to make discernment between whom it is that we're glorifying and whom it is that we're representing as we're bringing this message. That's not always an easy thing to discern, and so break up that fallow ground.

Let's go back over it. How do we break up the fallow ground? We said first of all you have to get into the Word of God. "This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shall meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success" (Joshua 1:8). It's the Word of God. We bring the Word of God into our lives. "Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart." Your Word has become a lamp unto my feet so there is no occasion of stumbling, praise God.

We look at all of those things that the Word is. "The entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding to the simple" (Psalm 119:130). The way that the fallow ground is broken up is by saturating ourselves with the Word of God. What does the Scripture say? "Is not my word like as a fire? saith the Lord; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?" (Jeremiah 23:29). And so that word will come, and it will begin to hammer away at the areas of our lives that are disobedient, the areas of our lives where there's complacency. That Word will constantly convict us. And we saw in Hebrews that it was alive and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword. This thing is alive and it discerns between the thoughts and the intentions. And so we begin to have our lives truly analyzed, and what our motives are. What do we do? We study, Timothy says, to show ourselves approved unto God, workmen that need not be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of truth.

How much time do you spend studying the Word of God? We read it. We have our little devotions. Study means to labor in. To study is to labor in and to seek and search for the wisdom of God and His voice to us at any given moment. It means to labor and to do. It's an interesting word in Timothy. It means to labor. Studying is labor. Most of us don't want to labor over the Word. We just want to open it up and have divine revelation jump out at us and change us, and, praise God, we're refreshed and we go on from there.

It's amazing, the warfare you go into the moment you open that book. Amen? Your mind is just doing pretty well--man, it's pretty focused. And you go [sound effects] and it goes everywhere. We need to fall on our faces and spend time and labor in the Word of God for Him to speak to us, and then come with that coal from the alters, praise God, that will change our perception. The Word of God is the number one factor in breaking up the fallow ground.

Colossians 3:16 says, "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom." Notice that word "dwell". The word has to come in there, and then we meditate upon it, we mull it over, and we let it become the primary focus of our meditation. Now the word "meditate," we know, means to mutter, to say it over and over. It doesn't mean to think about something. It means, to say it over and over, to mutter it. We've heard people mutter under their breath. That's what you need to do with the Word. People will be looking to lock you up, but still we just need to go around and just be speaking and say, "Well, praise God, it's written, I'm the head and not the tail; above only, not beneath. Praise God! Blessed going in and coming out." Yeah, they'll look to lock you up, but you know, maybe you shouldn't speak it out loud, but mutter it to yourself and just continue to keep it going over and over in your heart and encourage yourself with the Word of God. Speak the blessings of the Lord, and speak the commandments of the Lord because they make wise the simple, amen? And so here is the wisdom of God, and we need the Word constantly to break up that fallow ground.

Then we talked about prayer and fasting, and most of us don't like to fast, but it's a part of our lives. Jesus didn't say, "If you fast." He said, "And when you fast, and when you pray, and if you sin." But so many Christians today want to say, "When I sin, and if I pray, and if I fast." No, it's the other way around. You have to get these things in proper order. To break up the fallow ground is a disciplined life. It's a striving for the mastery. And we saw that if we want to be masters in obedience to the Word we have to be what? Temperate in all the carnal things, in all the temporal things.

We talked practically about some of the decisions some of you make. Not only in fellowshipping here, and we have probably--I've been to a lot of places over the years, and I'm not familiar, percentage wise, with many fellowships that have people out on Wednesday nights and Sunday nights that we do. Now, we all know why that is, don't we? Why do we have such attendance? Why are churches today closing Sunday nights and Wednesday nights all over the nation because nobody comes? Why do you think that's happening? Does anybody know why? Why is it happening that people aren't coming? Nobody requires them to come. Most of you are here because you were required to come and that requirement has turned into a desire to come. And that is what discipline is, that's where the breaking up of the fallow ground comes in. And that which becomes requirements not only becomes a delight, it becomes something that we look forward to, and that's the process. But that requirement, that discipline duration, that period that is chastening in our lives, it's grievous for the moment, the Scripture says, but it works the peaceable fruit of righteousness. The chastening is grievous as it's going on, but it works the peaceable fruit of righteousness. It's sad that so much of the Church doesn't get to experience that love of God, and because of that, they've lost their first love.

Prayer. Fasting. What does the Scripture say about prayer if we're going to break up the fallow ground? "Men ought always to pray, and not to faint" (Luke 18:1). "Pray without ceasing" (I Thessalonians 5:17). Pray fervently. "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much" (James 5:16). "And the prayer of faith [the Scripture tells us] shall save the sick" (James 5:15). These are the ways that we pray: in power and in belief, and confidence. Not in the prayer, in the presence of God. That's what breaks up the fallow ground.

Are you having trouble hearing? You need to spend more time in prayer. You need to get down and be quiet. Our lives are too noisy. "Be still and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10). Do you have trouble being still? Most of us, when we get still, fall asleep because we've been too busy. "I just can't get still, I mean, if I get still, I'm 'Z-z-z-z!' I'm gone." You're too busy. There is no reason for you to get still and fall asleep if you're living a temperate life. You should be able to get quiet before God. You should be able to silence all of this noise of the cares of the world to where you can hear the Word of God. And if you're not able to, then start practicing and disciplining yourself in that area. How do we do it? Hebrews tells us that our senses have to be exercised by what? Use. Having our senses exercised by reason of use, that we can discern and understand what God is saying to us and reveal what condition we're really in. So that means then by experience or the more you do it the better you get at it. It's very simple. You just spend more time doing it if you haven't become proficient at it yet and then you can hear from God. And you shut down all of the noise of the world. It's kind of interesting how these noises affect us and the ability to get quiet and hear from God.

We talked about the simplicity of the gospel and how the cares of this world can come in and begin to cause confusion in our lives. A very practical thing - I wasn't going to say anything about this, but I will now since it came to mind; somebody asked a very practical question. In the area that we're living in here, they asked the question about tithing. We all know to tithe, and we give the first fruits of our increase, and the majority of you probably 95% of you are tithers, and so off the top, praise God, 10%, the first, belongs to God. The question is always asked, "Well do we - Is it before taxes or after taxes?" It's before taxes. You render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, amen? And unto God what is God's. The fact that Caesar picked your pocket, that's your and Caesar's problem. The first fruit of all your increase. "Well, I didn't get that." Now wait a minute, listen. You didn't - "Well, the only increase that came to me was after 25% was taken out." Where did that 25% to pay Caesar come from? Did you have it? You had it or it couldn't have been taken from you. It was increase; that's what Caesar got paid with, your increase. And now you've got 75% left over, but this was your increase and Caesar got paid out of it. And so you rejoice in that. And so people say, "Well, you know, is it before ..." It's clear it's before, it's the first fruits.

Someone asked the question the other day, "Well what about - we sold our house, what about the equity?" And then some people say, "Well, you know, that's not increased because we're rolling it over into our house and we don't see that. That's not increase." It's not increase? Wait a minute, let me stop and think. Let me go back to when I was younger and Janet and I started out and we bought our first home. It was 1,010 square feet. And we paid $11,000 for that home, nice home, hardwood floors, ceramic tile. Wasn't real big. A little bigger than our walk-in closet now at home, but not a whole lot. And we sold that house and moved into federally subsidized apartments. Enjoyed that for a while, the riots during the evenings, and people shooting at one another, but that was a little interesting thing. But let's take the scenario this way. Some of us - let's start off with our 750 square foot condo that we bought, our first condo. And in the process we make these different transitions and here we go. And now I have this home that has a 750 square foot foyer, three stories high, beautiful, and 11 foot ceilings, and in the process, from a 750 square foot apartment I rolled it over to the 1200 square foot house, to the 2400 square foot house, to the 3500 square foot house, to the 7000 square foot house, "But God hasn't blessed me yet."

Tithing is just recognizing the blessings of the Lord. "I'm not blessed. What do I have to show for it?" It becomes pretty obvious, doesn't it? That any time we are transitioning up, if you're still in the 750 square foot apartment and it's now worth $2,000,000, God's not going to send you a bill for $2,000,000 if you're still in there. "Well I rolled it over into a house so I'm not blessed. I didn't realize any increase." You want me to tell you what increase you got? You just got a 6,500 square foot increase, is what you got. Everything that's there is increase. It's the spirit of it, beloved. Don't fall into the letter of the law, but it's the spirit of it. Of course you've been blessed, of course you've increased.

Let's take it back to biblical times. "Okay, I sold a field. I reap it. I don't need this. I put it in the silos. That's not increase. I'm not using it. I'm just eating this ear of corn. So here's a couple--here, here's my tithe. I haven't touched that, it's just bigger barns." And so the spirit of it--you can look at the different--Tragically, and I'm saying all that to say this: you know what the problem is? What we've done is mistaken business and taxes with tithe, and you can't marry the two. And the spirit of the one is to recognize that everything we have we've received from God. Now, okay, increase, what is increase? I'll just throw one more thing out. "I bought some stock, it's worth a million," don't pay your tithe yet. It's worth $12. The moment you draw it out to put it with your equity to buy the new house, you need to pay tithe on it. You take your killing. You pay your $1.20 in tithe, and you go on. If you want any more information on that we'll talk about it later if you need to, but numerous people had asked that. We're living in a time right now where we're running back and forth. See, you don't run into this in the Old Testament because nobody sold their homes. You just left it to your kids. It was the homestead. You stayed there, and you didn't change the old landmarks. We don't even have the ink dry on the contract before we're making another deal. There are no homesteads or real landmarks that many of us can identify with in our society, but it doesn't change our prosperity and our honoring of God.

Okay, glad you asked that question, now let's go on and talk a little bit about the stony ground. We could spend more time here on the fallow ground, we may refer back to it, but in light of the study that we're wanting to deal with, stirring ourselves up, and stirring up the gift that's in us in preparing ourselves for the coming of the Lord. The parable the Lord, then, speaks about this perfect seed being sown and it falls upon stony ground. We're talking about people, then, that are quick to hear the Word of God. It's an exciting thing. You hear the Word of God, and you go, "Praise God, amen! That's the Word." But you don't really consider the cost that's at hand. And we've shared about the cheap gospel that's been preached, tragically, in our day, and you want to know in the last probably few decades especially in America, the gospel goes something like this, "Okay, here's some good news...I've got good news for you." "Yeah, what's that?" "Did you know that Jesus died for your sins and all you have to do is believe that God raised Him from the dead and you will be saved. And along with that will come health, wealth, ease, comfort, peace, your wife will come back, your children will get off drugs..." And it's a Christianity with one cross, one sacrifice, and that's not all there is to this gospel. The one cross and the one sacrifice is what enables you and me to die with Him, to be crucified with Him, and Romans 6 says, that we might be raised in the power of His resurrection. And so we've brought a cross-less Christianity, one that doesn't say anything about taking up your cross daily and following Him, one that doesn't teach about dying to our own will, and to our own vision, and to our own lusts. It's a gospel that doesn't bring with it any type of opposition or persecution because it compromises with the world and the world is able to embrace it. It's a gospel of tolerance; it's a gospel of compromise. And so what happens is people hear the positives of the gospel, many times receive it with gladness, but then when the fullness of the gospel begins to manifest itself, it says because they have no root in themselves - that's an interesting phrase, because they have no root in themselves - I'd like to say that in a different way: Because there's no character found in them, they stumble.

Let's see what the Master said here in the fourth chapter and His interpretation. He said, "And these are they likewise which are sown on stony ground; who, when they have heard the word, immediately receive it with gladness; And have no root in themselves, and so endure for a time: afterward, when affliction or persecution arises [then catch the next little phrase, for what?] for the word's sake, immediately they are offended" (Mark 4:16, 17).

Let's talk about this just a little bit and survey our own lives. Some of us are new believers, and we've come in and you know what? "Things have been great and I got saved, and I'm off drugs, and I find the love here of a family. People have taken me in and loved me, and they've counseled me, been patient with me as I'm growing, and, praise God, this is great." I want you to understand something. There's some affliction and persecution coming. "Well, I could have gone without hearing that; things were going along pretty well." Every one of us has to experience this. And in our lives, the Scripture makes it very clear, that what is being established is the John 15 purging process that we might bring forth what? More fruit. And that our fruit, the Scripture says, might remain.

So, here're these people, they receive the Word, "Praise God! Amen! This is great, man! Sins are forgiven; peace of mind." Then, all of a sudden, they start hearing more of the gospel, like Matthew 10 that says that you've got to take up a cross. For the first time, now, they've heard the gospel. They just got saved.

Right after Thanksgiving, you got saved. Praise God. See, we've got to miss that holiday. This will help you out. And now you're saved, praise God, and Jesus has made you into a new creature, glory to God, and then Christmas comes along. And at Christmas, you're always the Santa Claus for all the other kids. You get to dress up with the pillow and "Ho, ho, ho." But here we are, and now you have all of these family traditions and everything that totally contradicts the gospel. So, you have to tell the family, "I can't, I can't be Santa this year." "Can't be Santa? Why?" "Well, I've just accepted the Lord as my personal savior..." "Yeah, okay, that's all good and fine, but look, this is just tradition. There's nothing wrong with lying to our kids about what Christmas is all about. You don't need to get carried away with this Jesus stuff." And that's our first little opposition and we say, "Well, now how am I going to handle this thing?"

Now, you don't have to do it like I did, with my - we still have it on super 8 video. Unbeknownst to us, my parents had hired this Santa Claus to come. The family was meeting for Christmas. So, we go over there and Kimberly is like, how old? Four. Kimberly is four years old, Star is two, and here comes this guy in. "Ho, ho, ho." And they go, "Whoa, Jack! Who is this fat man in the red suit?" And they're looking at him and he comes over and says, "Hi little girl. What do you want Santa to give you for Christmas?" And Dad, being like he is sometimes, Kimberly looks at him and says, "Santa Claus is a rat fink." I'm not advising that kind of counsel, okay? But our children knew early what Christmas was about, and it doesn't go over real big with those who aren't serving the Lord and there's going to be some opposition, and that's very mild.

Some of you get to experience things like I shared that I did early in my salvation. Within the first few days of getting born again my family totally disowned me. They took my inheritance, gave it to my brother. They wouldn't have - I was dead as far as they were concerned. I can still remember, on the telephone that day, the words of my Father. He said, "Look, I don't want to hear any of this nonsense [he didn't use those words] and you make up your mind right now, are you going to stay with your family or are you going to do this religious junk? Make up your mind." I said, "My mind's already made up," I said, "This is no contest, man." I said, "You didn't die for my sins and you've never loved me unconditionally, but God does. I choose Jesus." There're some things that you have to make decisions on, and are you offended when the persecutions come, when you're out sharing the gospel and you lose your job? Because where are things going in this country? It's going to become - it's already pretty well a common thing, but it's going to become a law that you can't share your faith on the job. "Well, God knows my heart, He knows my willingness to share. They just won't let me." Who're they? Caesar? "Go into all the world and preach the gospel if Caesar lets you?"

We're a people that, as we look at these commandments, and we look at this parable, we find out what this gospel is going to cost us. We receive it with gladness, but when the trials come--how about just the trials for your revelation? How about as you focus on doing the Word of God and say, "Bless God, I'm going to keep the Word of God if it harelips the devil." I want you to understand something. He's going try to steal this Word, and I want you to understand what Paul went through. "And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, [beat me black and blue because of the abundance of the revelation God had given me] lest I should be exalted above measure" (2 Corinthians 12:7). You want some trials in your life? Just start getting some revelation from God. Start getting serious about laying your life down, and speaking the truth, and living the truth, and making a life commitment to do the Word of God and you'll know what buffeting and trials are about. Then we answer the question; do you have any root in yourself?

How do we get some root? You'd better listen to what Jesus taught in another passage. He said, "I want you to hear something, you've got to dig deep into the rock." Amen? One of my favorite things on the Learning Channel, I love watching the building of the Golden Gate Bridge and the Empire State Building, and the Boulder Dam - Hoover Dam, Boulder Dam. And one thing that is cool about the dam is that they searched that whole river to find a place that had solid rock to build that dam. Billions of tons of pressure on that dam, trying to push it down. But they dug deep into the rock, and they began to show the labor of making that natural foundation of solid rock. Do you understand that's not done in a week? It's not done with a Brookstone, what do you call those little things that people use in their gardens, little trowel things. (You can see how much gardening I do. What are those things?) But anyway, you're not getting there with that. We're talking about blasting. We're talking about jackhammers. We're talking about going deep into a surface that's not easily penetrated: sweat, blood, and tears to lay this foundation.

Can I ask you something? Are we striving to enter in? "The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force" (Matthew 11:12). What are we doing--we received the Word with gladness--what are we doing to lay the foundation? The fact that there is stone can be good if we get enough topsoil and that's what we're going to talk about the next session.

In this same parable, as we read along, there's a great aspect of soil preparation. Do you remember the parable where the Lord said, "Why is this tree cumbering the ground, man? When we come by here cut this thing down." The master came and he said, "Lord, give me one more year and let me dung around this tree, and then if it doesn't bring forth any fruit I'll cut it down myself." And the Lord said, "Okay, that's fine." The one thing we need to understand about soil preparation is this: we need fertilizer. The ground that we're talking about only receives one kind. It's not something you can buy down at Hechinger's. Only one kind of fertilizer works in the heart soil, and you want to know what it is? Death to self, the decomposing of the self-life, is the only thing that will cause this ground to receive nutrients that can bring forth glory to God.

"Give me one more year and let me dung around this thing. Let me put some fertilizer on it." You want to know what is required in your life and my life? Death to self. Acknowledging ourselves dead indeed to self and alive unto Christ. The preparation of that soil, the breaking up of that stone underneath to where there is sufficient soil to cover but at the same time we can lay foundations into it. It takes character, and the tragic thing is that's what the people are lacking in this parable, the inability to endure. In our next session we want to talk about building that endurance factor. You know what it is? It's called patience.

We find that the two forces that operate, that will cause us to be successful, are faith and patience. "But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing" (James 1:4). No lack of character, no lack of covenant promises. How does it happen? Counting it all joy in the midst of these trials and tribulations. The lack of character puts us into self-pity. The lack of character causes us to begin to judge God. "Why me, God? Why do I have to experience this?" But the proper understanding of the love of Father as He chastens our lives and prepares us to bring forth more fruit will cause us, then, to be able to stand. It will not be that self-expression of joy without having counted the cost. Having faith and patience, the Scripture says, we'll eat the good of the land.

Father, we thank You for the Word of God and as we take this time to study this parable of the sower, speak to our hearts. We ask, Father, that You somehow practically apply it to each life that is here. We have different needs in our lives, Father, and we understand that, but the principles are the same, and the truths applicable to every one of us. Your Word declares very clearly that we have need of patience. So many of us are so prone to give up so quickly when life doesn't go according to our expectations, when You don't perform according to our finite perception. Let us begin to establish some root in ourselves, to dig deep into the rock so that when the winds and the waves come and beat vehemently, our house will not even be shaken much less fall. Root; character, preparation, commitment to stand, determination prior to the adversities that enable us to be constant through the adversities. Make it real Father; cause it to work that You might be glorified. It's our hearts' desire. In Jesus' name, amen. Let's stand before the Lord.

What do you do when things don't go your way? "Well, I lay out of church for a few weeks and go lick my wounds and feel sorry for myself." You don't have any root in yourself. You're setting yourself up for destruction, eternal destruction. Don't faint at the adversities, the afflictions, the persecutions, but count it all joy that you're counted worthy to suffer for His name's sake. Can you rejoice in the persecution that comes for the Word's sake? Praise God! Praise God, my family hates me because I love Jesus. Thank You, Lord. And then there's not any resentment. Then we reach back and we love those that hate us, and we continue to bring them the gospel. There's no bitterness; there's rejoicing. Thank God there's enough recognition of Jesus in my life that the world hates me. Thank God that there's enough of the love of God in me that the traditions of men do not dictate my course at all. Therefore, the Pharisees hate me, the religious people hate me because my offering was accepted and theirs was rejected. And like Cain, they'll try to kill us, but we rejoice when they say all manner of evil against us for His name's sake. Oh, it's not done without tears, it's not done without preparation, and it's not done without trepidation. I'm not saying, "Oh, there's nothing to it." No, it hurts, but you do it. There's effort involved, but you do it.

Like the milch kine that were pulling the Ark, you may be lowing as you go, having to leave your own babies behind, but you do it. And if you don't, you're not worthy of Him. Afflictions, persecutions, for the Word's sake. The day is coming when they are going to kill us and believe they're doing God a service. Watch the escalation as the world begins to demand tolerance among the religions. "We can't have any more of this fighting between the Muslims, and the Jews, and the Christians. We will not tolerate it; it will stop. Your religions have gone far enough. You're the cause of all the turmoil in the world. Now you're going to stop." We cannot help but speak the things that we've seen and heard. This same Jesus that you crucified, God has raised from the dead, praise God. That's our testimony. "You want to stop this message? You're going to have to kill us." For the Word's sake. This is not a shallow life, this Christian life that we're called to. It's not fun and games, "Oh, praise God, look what the Lord's..." No root, you need to dig deep. And so just ask Him right now; say, "Lord, I can't do it in my own strength, it's not in me but I'm willing." See, the underlying message that we're going to go through in all of these things is that Philippians passage, that it's He that works in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure. Are you willing to be willing? "Lord, I can't do it, but I'm willing. Here am I Lord. Take the coal from the altar, change me; I'm a man that's undone, I'm a man of unclean lips. But if you can use me, here I am." And He's going to say, "Okay, you're going to have to change this. You're going to have to break up the fallow ground. You're going to dig deep into the rock. You're going to have to pull the vines of the cares of the world off yourself and give Me some good ground to work with and I'll bring forth fruit, 30, 60, and 100 fold, praise God." "Okay. Here am I Lord, send me."

Let's sing it together and just rejoice in His goodness. Thank You, Father. "Lord, prepare me..." Make us into Your image, Lord. Oh, thank You, Jesus. Yes, Lord. Sing it one more time. Just bless Him. Prepare me, Lord. Here am I, send me.

Hallelujah! Just thank Him for the call on your life. Just rejoice in His presence. Take a moment and just rejoice in His presence in your life and the great gift. Lord, we delight ourselves in Your presence and we thank You for the high calling that You've put upon our lives, that You've ordained us to go and to bring forth fruit. You've declared that it shall remain. Cause us, Lord, to be faithful in the call that You've put upon our lives, and so we say in this, Your visitation, "Here am I, Lord; send me." In Jesus' name, amen, amen. Before you go, turn to somebody next to you and say, "Go." Amen. Go in peace; God's love go with you.

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