PT-3 "The Receptive Hearer" (Matt. 13:23)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/7/2022 11:13 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                  Focus: PT-3 “The Receptive Hearer”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                    Reference:  Matthew 13:23

 

            Message of the verse:  “23 “And the one on whom seed was sown on the good

soil, this is the man who hears the word and understands it; who indeed bears fruit, and brings forth, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty.’

 

            Let us look again at verse eight:  8 "And others fell on the good soil, and *yielded a crop, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty.”  Now we mentioned earlier that the average yield ratio of grain crops in Palestine was less than eight to one.  Therefore even the least productive of thirty to one was almost four times the average yield. MacArthur writes “It is not that a believer produces a hundred, sixty, or thirty times the amount of fruit at all.  Jesus simply used these figures to represent the great productivity He gives to the faithful proclamation of His Word.  That is the point of the entire parable:  true believers produce fruit.

            “To His witnesses Jesus is saying, ‘Go and preach, and realize as you go that some people will reject your message outright.  Because they want nothing to do with God, Satan will not allow the gospel to have any impact on them whatsoever.  Others will seem to accept it gradly but will soon fall away, because they only had a superficial religious experience and were not born again.  These are the ones who live by the flesh, whose lives are controlled by emotion, feeling, and sentiment.  Others will seem to accept the gospel while holding on to the old life and its ways; and their faith will also prove vain and will eventually disappear as it is chocked out by the world.  But others will truly believe.  In humility they will confess and repent of their sins, look to Me for help, and be given new life.  You will know these true believers from the others by the evidence of fruit in their lives’”

 

            Another thing that Jesus is saying to His witnesses is that they should not lose heart.  It is only God alone who can plow up the heart that is hard and resistant.  In God’s sovereign will He gives the shallow heart depth, and the cluttered heart cleansing, we in our own strength cannot do anything like this, but we can yield to the Holy Spirit to work a work in our lives for the cause of Christ.  I continue to mention Ephesians 2:10 to show that the Lord guarantees that His faithful witnesses will produce fruit and will do so abundantly.  MacArthur adds “It is impossible for a faithful sower of the Word to fail, because the Lord of the harvest will not permit it.  So we anticipate the wrong and the right responses.  What marvelous help insight for those who sow!”

 

            The Lord is teaching us that His people, the ones who truly belong to Him can and should be a witness for Him.  The responsibility of the one who sows the gospel in His name not to produce the seed, the soil, or the fruit as his only responsibility is to faithfully spread the seed as far and wide as he is able.  So what happens is when they fall on the good soil, the seeds that a little child throws here and there as he follows his father through the field will produce faithful plants just as genuine and productive as those the experienced father plants.  The untrained Christian who will faithfully scatter his few seeds will produce a greater harvest than the most learned and experienced believer who never bothers to sow at all, so the point is to sow the seed and leave the results to the Lord for He is the only One who can save a person, all we can do is to sow the seed.

 

            We are now at the end of the 33^rd chapter of MacArthur’s second commentary on the gospel of Matthew, we are now in our 29^th month of studying this wonderful gospel.  I don’t think that we will get through the gospel of Matthew for another 29 months, but we will plug on, and expect the Holy Spirit to continue to bless this study.  We will conclude this section and chapter with the following quote from John MacArthur.  “To those who are considering His claims or have made a perfunctory decision for Him, Jesus gives an appeal to think about the kind of soil that represents their heart.  If it is hard-packed and beaten down by continual neglect of God, or perhaps even by conscious opposition, He calls that person to allow His Spirit to break up the ground and make it receptive to His Word.  If the soil of his heart is shallow and superficial, He calls that person to allow the Spirit to remove the rocky resistance that lies beneath the surface of his seeming acceptance of the gospel and give him true faith.  If the soil of his heart is infested with the weedy cares and concerns of the world, He asks that person to allow the Spirit to cleanse him of his worldliness and to receive Him with no reservations or competing loyalties.”

 

            Readers think about this last quotation from John MacArthur and if a decision is needed for Christ make that decision and by doing that you will change your eternal destination.

 

  

            4/7/2022 11:46 AM

PT-2 "The Receptive Hearer" (Matthew 13:23)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/6/2022 8:54 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                  Focus: PT-2 “The Receptive Hearer”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Matthew 13:23

 

            Message of the verse:  “23 “And the one on whom seed was sown on the good

soil, this is the man who hears the word and understands it; who indeed bears fruit, and brings forth, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty.’”

 

            We continue looking at the seed that fell into the soil that was prepared, and is the only seed in this parable that speaks of saving faith and shows it because of the fruit that it gives.

 

            Let us begin by looking at one of my very favorite Psalms, Psalm 1:1-3 “1 How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, Nor stand in the path of sinners, Nor sit in the seat of scoffers! 2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD, And in His law he meditates day and night. 3 He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, Which yields its fruit in its season And its leaf does not wither; And in whatever he does, he

prospers.  We see here that the Psalmist delights in the Word of God so much that he meditates on it day and night which causes him to be like a tree that is planted by streams of water and this provides the nourishment that is needed to cause the tree to grow and produce fruit, which then causes him to prosper.  Now let us look at John 15 :1-5 “1 "I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. 2 "Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. 3 “You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. 4 “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. 5 “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.”  We can see from these verses that those who are related to Christ will produce fruit, as at times believers need to be pruned in order to produce even more fruit.  He prunes believers because He loves us.  Not as we look at Ephesians 2:10, another of my very favorite verses we will see in the verses before that that we are not saved by bearing fruit or by any other good work, because we cannot bear spiritual fruit or do any truly good work until after we are saved.  In verse ten we see that we are saved for fruit bearing:  “10  For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”  Just as our salvation was prepared for us in eternity past so the good works that we do for the Lord were also prepared for us to do in eternity past and as we study the Word of God, listen to sermons and seek to find out what it is that the Lord has prepared for us to do He will show us through His Holy Spirit that lives within us.

 

            John MacArthur writes “Not only does Jesus assure us that true believers bear fruit but that they bear it in great abundance: some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty.  Those figures represent phenomenal yields of 10,000 percent, 6,000 percent, and 3,000 percent.  Believers differ in fruit-bearing because they differ in commitment to obedience, but all are profusely fruitful.”  As I look at these passages here from Matthew, from John, and from Ephesians I think about a verse in 1 Corinthians which talks about the rewards that believers will get as the work for the cause of Christ in producing fruit.  I think, as I have said that in eternity past that God has prepared work for us to do, work that will produce fruit and as we do the work that He prepared for us in the power of the Holy Spirit, and do it faithfully our rewards in heaven will then be determined on how we did that work.  As a believer I can do nothing good on my own, in my own strength, but must rely on the Spirit of God to guide me into the work that He has prepared for me to do, so in the end it is all about God, and in the end it will be God who receives the glory for me doing the things that He has prepared for me to do.  My example, as always is my Lord Jesus Christ who followed exactly the things that His Father desired for Him to do while on earth and thus in the 17^th chapter of John’s gospel we see He said “4  "I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do. 5 “Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.” Jesus accomplished His Word that the Father wanted Him to do and now He will return to the glory that He had before He had come to earth, and in truth He will be different than when He left heaven to do this work for He is not the God-Man and knows what it means to be a man, and for that I am very thankful because He knows what I go through each and everyday.

 

4/6/2022 9:29 AM

    

PT-1 "The Receptive Hearer" (Matt. 13:23)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/5/2022 10:58 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                  Focus: PT-1 “The Receptive Hearer”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Matthew 13:23

 

            Message of the verse:  “23 "And the one on whom seed was sown on the good soil, this is the man who hears the word and understands it; who indeed bears fruit, and brings forth, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty.’”

 

            Today we begin to look at the fourth patch of ground on whom seed was sown on the good soil.  The soil does not really have a different basic composition than the other kinds of soil but it is because it is rightly prepared which makes up the difference.  Because the person’s heart is prepared by the Holy Spirit and is receptive to God as seen in John 16:8-11, that the person that this soil represents hears the word and understands it, which happens before salvation, as the person who receives Christ has the same basic nature as those who reject Him, as every person that is born into this world is born a sinner having a sin nature, so we are all born wrong.  I have a friend that heads up a ministry at an abortion clinic every Wednesday and so I pray for her many days of each week.  The one thing that I pray about is that the Holy Spirit will begin to work on the hearts of the ladies who go to this facility to have their babies murdered so that their babies will be saved and that eventually they would both come to Christ to be saved.  This is the kind of work that has to happen that is done by the Holy Spirit in order for anyone to be saved.  I can look back a few months before the Lord saved me, perhaps a year or so and as I look back I can now realize that the Holy Spirit was doing a work in my life to prepare me for the effectual call that He gave me on the 26^th of January in 1974.

 

             4/5/2022 12:06 PM

 

            MacArthur writes:  “The only barrier to salvation is unbelief, and anyone who is willing to accept Jesus Christ on His terms is good soil.  He hears the word of the gospel because God honors his humility and opens his spiritual ears; and he understands the gospel because God honors his faith and opens his spiritual mind and heart.”  As I have expressed how the Lord saved me I can see that from MacArthur’s quote here that this was exactly what happened to me.

 

            Jesus tells this to His disciples in order to encourage them, and this will encourage all other believers who desire to tell others about the way of salvation.  Surely there will be many who do not desire to hear the Word and be saved, but as long as we tell others the truth, pray for them we are doing what we can, for it is always up to the Holy Spirit to give an effectual call for a person to be saved.  We cannot save anyone, but we can and should give out the message of salvation to those willing to hear it.  We don’t know who is of the good soil but God does and will show us who to go to in order to tell them the good news.

 

            Now once we give out the message of salvation and a person tell us that they accept it the next thing that has to be done in the life of this new believer is fruit-bearing.  He will not only hear and understand but also indeed bear fruit.  Spiritual fruit is the inevitable product of spiritual life.

            In the book of Galatians Paul writes in the fifth chapter and verses 22-23 about what is called “The Fruit of the Spirit.”  “22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23  gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”  MacArthur adds “The genuine believer also bears fruit of behavior, which Paul refers to as ‘the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God’ (Phil. 1:11).  Fruit is the spiritual reality that God produces in the lives of His children.  The Spirit-filled life of the believer ‘is constantly bearing fruit’ (Col. 1:6).”

 

4/5/2022 12:19 PM

PT-2 "The Worldly Hearer" (Matt. 13:22)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/4/2022 9:36 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                  Focus:  PT-2 “The Worldly Hearer”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                    Reference:  Matthew 13:22

 

            Message of the verse:  “22 "And the one on whom seed was sown among the thorns, this is the man who hears the word, and the worry of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.”

 

            In our SD for today we continue looking at the third patch of soil, the one that is infested with thorns which represents the man who hears the word, the man who is too worldly.

 

            In the gospels Jesus spoke to a man who was very rich.  The man came up to Jesus and started to tell him how “great he was” as he believed that he was keeping the law, and felt that that was enough to get him into heaven.  Jesus told him in so many words that his riches were the problem, to give up what he had and give it to the poor.  Now Jesus was not saying this to all people who are rich, because there are some people who are not controlled by their riches like this man was, but the ones who this verse we are looking at certainly have this problem.  1 Timothy 6:10 tells us “For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.”  Now we will look at a couple of verses from 1 John, verses that many believers can probably quote by heart:  “15 Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. 17 The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.” 

 

            I want now, to quote a couple of paragraphs from MacArthur’s commentary, remembering that what the first paragraph contains happened in the 1980’s.  “Some years ago the US Department of Agriculture developed a soil treatment that contains 6 percent ethyl alcohol.  When the solution is applied to a field in the proper amount, it reportedly causes all the weeds to sprout and grow vigorously.  Once they are grown, the weeds can then be mechanically removed before they have a chance to develop seeds.  The field becomes virtually free of weeds for up to five years.

            “That is something of a picture of true conversion.  Christ’s cleansing is complete and thorough.  The preaching of the law of God makes sin flourish (cf. Rom. 7:7-12), and in salvation He removes all the weeds of sin in order to cleanse the field of the heart and prepare it for the pure seed of His Word.  Subsequent sin requires subsequent cleansing; and that sin, too, when confessed, Christ is also ‘faithful and righteous to forgive’ (1 John 1:9).  The Lord’s desire is to keep His people free from all sin at all times.”  It is my hope that all who read this will find these two paragraphs as interesting as it did for me.

 

            Now the one who fits into this type of soil may be unconcerned about sin in his life, and even perhaps does not hate evil, but is to love righteousness, which is true of those who fit into this type of soil.  When this happens to a professing believer of this type of soil he will eventually discover that his love of the world and his identification with Christ’s word cannot coexist.  This is what happened to the “rich young ruler” we spoke of earlier in this SD.  However if his faith is genuine, he will forsake the world; if it is not, his sin will choke out what knowledge of the word he has.

 

            We conclude with this final paragraph from MacArthur’s commentary on this type of soil.  “A person who comes to church but never becomes committed to serving who is continually preoccupied with money, career, fashions, sports, and everything but the Lord’s work is a person with a weed-infested heart.  A person who claims to love Christ but who cannot remain faithful in marriage has a weedy heart.  The person who refuses to let go of his worldliness is a person in whom the seed of God’s saving gospel has not found root and is in danger of being choked out altogether.”

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today: I have to admit that there are times when the things mentioned in this last paragraph are problems for me, as I think that this could be true of all believers, especially living in the West.

 

            My Steps of Faith for Today:  When I find myself getting to close to the world I must confess that and remember that only the things I do for Christ will last.  I want to remember Ephesians 2:10, remembering that the Lord has given me things to accomplish for Him in the power of the Holy Spirit for the cause of Christ and be sensitive to what He has called me to do, and do it.

 

4/4/2022 10:09 AM

PT-1 "The Worldly Hearer" (Matt. 13:22)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/3/2022 8:21 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                  Focus:  PT-1 “The Worldly Hearer”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                    Reference:  Matthew 13:22

 

            Message of the verse:  “22 "And the one on whom seed was sown among the thorns, this is the man who hears the word, and the worry of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.”

 

            I have to say that to me, perhaps this section from verse 22 is the one that happens to the most people, especially in our country today.  Also perhaps this can be the one that many true believers fall prey too.

 

            This is the third patch of soil and this is infested with thorns and represents the man who hears the word but who is too worldly for it to take root and grow in his heart.  This person hears the word of the gospel, and may even make a token profession of faith, however his first love is the things of the world, and so his worry about or his preoccupation with those things that blinds him to the importance of the gospel or perhaps anything else spiritual and eternal.  The problem is that he loves riches and lives as if they are the answer to all of the needs that he has or desires.  The truth is that he is oblivious to their deceitfulness, to their utter inability to satisfy the heart or bring lasting happiness.  This man does not notice his deceiving worldliness as it chokes the word, and because his attention is on his riches, possessions, prestige, position, and other things of the world.  He is not even aware that he has lost what knowledge of the world he once had or that his spiritual life is totally unfruitful and that is because he has no real interest in such things.

 

            At this time I want to quote from a Spiritual Diary that I just put onto my other blog which I wrote on the first of August in 2019 which I believe will show that opposite of what this man thought he had.

 

John MacArthur concludes this section by writing “A city missionary in London was called to an old tenement building where a woman lay dying in the last stages of a terrible disease.  The room was cold and she had nowhere to lie but on the floor.  When the missionary asked if there was anything he could do, she replied, ‘I have all I really need; I have Jesus Christ.’  Deeply moved, the missionary went home and penned these words:

 

‘In the heart of London City,

Mid the dwellings of the poor,

These bright and golden words were uttered,

‘I have Christ.  What want I more?’

Spoken by a lonely woman dying on a garret floor,

Having not one earthly comfort,

‘I have Christ.  What want I more?’”

Give Me Jesus

Jeremy Camp

In the morning, when I rise
In the morning, when I rise
In the morning, when I rise
Give me Jesus

Give me Jesus
Give me Jesus
You can have all this world
Just give me Jesus

When I am alone
When I am alone
Oh, when I am alone
Give me Jesus

Give me Jesus
Give me Jesus
You can have all this world
Just give me Jesus

Jesus
Give me Jesus

When I come to die
When I come to die
Oh, when I come to die
Give me Jesus

Give me Jesus
Give me Jesus

 

Give me Jesus
Give me Jesus
You can have all this world
Just give me Jesus

Give me Jesus
Give me Jesus
You can have all this world
You can have all this world
You can have all this world
Just give me Jesus

4/3/2022 8:38 AM

PT-3 "The Superficial Hearer" (Matt. 13:20-21)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/2/2022 8:36 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                               Focus:  PT-3 “The Superficial Hearer”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                              Reference:  Matthew 13:20-21

 

            Message of the verses:  “20  "And the one on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, this is the man who hears the word, and immediately receives it with joy; 21  yet he has no firm root in himself, but is only temporary, and when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he falls away.”

 

            This person after the affliction and persecution because of the word will immediately fall away.  It seems that as fast as he seemed to accept the gospel he will turn from it just that fast, however this may take years before that severe testing comes.  This superficial believer may even be baptized, serve in the church, and he may apparently function as a model member for a long time.  However the testing will eventually come that will expose his lifelessness.

 

            MacArthur writes “The affliction and persecution Jesus is talking about does not have to do with the ordinary hardships and troubles of life but specifically with problems that result because of the word.  When the cost of discipleship becomes too high, this person falls away and becomes lost to the visible church just as he was always lost to the spiritual.

            “Falls away is from skandalizo, which means to cause to stumble or fall and is the term from which we get scandalize.  It is sometimes translated with the idea of causing offense—as in the Authorized Version of this verse.  All of those meanings are appropriate here, because the superficial Christian is scandalized, offended, stumbles, and falls away when his faith is put to the test (cf. John 8:31; 1 John 2:19).”

 

            When this person is being ridiculed by his friends, family, fellow students, coworkers, or employers or put pressure on him to renounce his faith, this person will do that because he really did not have any true faith in the first place.  When this happens he will be ashamed of the gospel and the One he had so joyously proclaimed as Lord, and because his profession had no conviction or even sincerity, he would have never experienced the new birth and new life in Christ that He gives, the result is his sham faith soon withers.

 

            John MacArthur quotes William Arnot again:  “If the law of God has never rent the ‘stony heart’ and made it ‘contrite,’ that is, bruised it small, you may, by receiving the Gospel on some temporary, superficial softness of nature, obtain your religion more easily and quickly than others who have been more deeply exercised; but you may perhaps not be able to hold it so fast or retain it so long…He that endureth to the end shall be saved; but he that falls away in the middle shall not.”

 

            A true believer’s profession of Christ has to have a deep conviction of sin, a genuine sense of lostness, a strong desire for the Lord to cleanse and purify, an hungering and thirsting for rightesness and a love of His Word, along with a genuine willingness to suffer for the cause of Christ, and if that is not there then perhaps that person is not truly a believer at all.

 

            MacArthur concludes this section by writing:  “It is encouraging however, that the same persecution that makes the false believer wither will make the true believer stronger.  ‘All who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted’ (2 Tim. 3:12); but ‘after you have suffered for a little while,’ Peter assures us, ‘the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you’ (1 Pet. 5:10).”

 

4/2/2022 9:01 AM

PT-2 "The Superficial Hearer" (Matt. 13:20-21)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/1/2022 9:05 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                Focus: PT-2 “The Superficial Hearer”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                              Reference:  Matthew 13:20-21

 

            Message of the verses:  “20 "And the one on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, this is the man who hears the word, and immediately receives it with joy; 21 yet he has no firm root in himself, but is only temporary, and when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he falls away.”

 

            Let us begin with a question this morning:  How come many people rapidly accept the gospel message?  We see the answer is for some at least is because the person’s emotional response to the gospel is so immediate and positive, and this sort of convert stands out above most others.  This person is often more vocal in talking about his experience and may even be zealous in church attendance or Bible Studies and even pray for a while.  So I guess the bottom line is that they are very emotional.  Now to tell the truth that is exactly the way that I responded to the gospel, but as mentioned many times it was certainly real for me.  Oh yes I have had my ups and downs, which I suppose happens to all believers, but thinking about my experience when I first heard the gospel, at least heard it and understood it that I was instantly a true believer.

 

            In the case of the people or person we are talking about in this section of Matthew we see that it was because the soil of his heart is shallow, thus he has no firm root in himself.  The gospel prompts and immediate positive reaction, however it is only temporary, which makes all the change only on the surface, and not having any depth in his heart.  The problem is that his feelings were changed, however not his soul.  MacArthur writes “God’s life-giving word cannot take root because just below the surface of his heart is a rocky base that is even harder to penetrate than the soil beside the road.  There is no repentance, no remorse over sin, no recognition of lostness, not contrition, no brokenness.  And there is no humility, which is the first mark of true conversion (Matt. 5:3).”  “"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

 

            The problem is that when this person hears the gospel it becomes a “religious” experience, but it does not bring salvation which is evidenced by the fact that when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he falls away.”  We can see that the gospel truth has not penetrated into his heart but it is only on the edge of his mind, so it is therefore immediately renounced as it was immediately received.  This person has come to Christ to find something from Him, but when he does not receive it he will turn away because he is not a true believer.  I think that this could be described as what the tele-evangelizers are really “selling” as the health and wealth gospel.  This person has built his religious house on the sand of emotional experience, and when the storms of affliction or persecution beat on his house it will crumble and then it will wash away with the waves as seen in Matthew 7:26-27.  The problem is that there is no root that goes down deep, but only foliage or a religious experience, therefore he cannot produce spiritual fruit “22 “And the one on whom seed was sown among the thorns, this is the man who hears the word, and the worry of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. 23 “And the one on whom seed was sown on the good soil, this is the man who hears the word and understands it; who indeed bears fruit, and brings forth, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty’” (Matthew 13:22-23). 

 

            Looks like we will have to finish this section tomorrow, (No April fools joke).

 

4/1/2022 9:32 AM