The Parable of the Sower – 3
“The Choice is Yours”
Romans 1:16-17
“For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.”
Last week we started talking about the parable of the sower. These are the facts to remember as we continue this series:
➢ The seed is the Word. God’s ONLY tool is the Word of God. Everything He does, He does through the Word!
➢ The sower is God. He is scattering seed daily and Satan is trying to pick it up.
➢ The ground is you. The ground determines all the results of the sowing.
Again, I want to pick up right where we left off last Sunday night. Tonight, we will be getting into the different types of grounds, but this morning I believe we need to continue on the subject of the power of the seed. The seed is the Word of God and our text says that this Word has dynamite power to deliver anyone and anything. So the question remains if it has the power to deliver everyone then why isn’t everyone delivered? The answer is found in this parable.
I. YOU CHOOSE!
The sower sows the Word, and the Word is the power of God unto whatever kind of deliverance you need. Although the Word is the power of God, the Bible gives us very clear insight as to what happens when people choose not to receive the Word. We find what happens in Romans:
Romans 1:20-22, “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened (confused). Professing to be wise, they became fools.” (NKJV)
When people know God from the world He created and even know of His eternal power and Godhead, there is no relationship with Him.
➢ I know Bill Gates through Microsoft.
➢ I know Steve Jobs through Apple.
➢ I know Albert Einstein through his general theory of relativity.
➢ I know Thomas Edison through the light bulb.
➢ But I don’t know these men. I have never met them. I know who they are by what they did and discovered, but I don’t know them.
Paul tells the Church of Rome that the problem with knowing God by what He has done and created is that there is no relationship and with no relationship is no revelation knowledge of who He really is.
When people just accept God as a supreme being somewhere, we get confused. This society all knows who God is. Some will say that He created the world, most will say that they believe in Him, but there is no relationship with Him. So, just like Paul’s day, when there is no relationship, they create idols.
We do not have idols of birds or worship the sun anymore, now we have humanism. This is when man exalts man to a level of prime importance. What man thinks, feels, and decides is the highest knowledge for man to know instead of the knowledge of God. In making that choice, people feel that they are wise, but in reality this passage continues to tell us what they really are. Society is now making all the rules and ignoring all of God’s rules and guidelines. We see a direct correlation between Paul’s day and ours. Let’s continue reading:
Romans 1:23, “And changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.”
As a result, Romans 1:24-27, “Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonour their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature (mankind and his human body) rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason God gave them up (or surrendered them) to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.”
The most common saying amongst unbelievers is, “If there was a God, then there would not be any poverty in the world or bad people.” These are people who are speaking out of ignorance. This Scripture tells us what God does, He doesn’t do anything to people that refuse to serve Him. When God gives someone up, that means He has been trying to keep them going in the right way and has warned them over and over that they are going the wrong way, but they keep pressing forward until He finally gives them up to the way they want to go. That doesn’t mean that He has given up on them, it simply means He lets them decide what they want to do.
We will always lose when we do not believe in God’s way of doing things and chose to live the way we want to. As a result, our foolish heart gets even darker. If we don’t keep ourselves in check, we will come to place where that which you think is right is really wrong and that which you think is wrong is really right.
The Word says that God gave them up to “vile affections” as a result of their choices. Paul identifies several of these vile affections, but one of them is men having sex with men, and women having sex with women. The entire Earth operates off a principle found in Genesis 8:
Genesis 8:22, “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.”
God works through seedtime and harvest. Satan works through seedtime and harvest, and you work through seedtime and harvest, even though you may not even realize it. At one point in time, your father carried you as a seed and deposited you into your mother. After nine months, they reaped the harvest of you; you are a result of this principle. Every single one of us is a product of seedtime and harvest.
This principle of seedtime and harvest is why God gave them up. I don’t care what secular culture says about alternative lifestyles, I only care what God says. This principle is obvious. If you join a man’s body and a woman’s body, it should be clear that the two of them were created to be together and produce a harvest. It is also obvious that a man’s body was not created to fit another man’s body. A woman’s body was not created to fit another woman’s body. There is no way that this principle can be fulfilled.
What happens when people do not follow God’s ways?
Romans 1:28, “And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting.”
Again, what does God do? He does nothing. People continued down the path they were walking, refusing to obey God. God won’t do anything. The choice is ours! If you refuse to listen to God, please stop blaming God for the things that are happening around you. Everything in this life is seedtime and harvest. We reap what we sow. That is the basis of this Parable of the Sower.
If we continue reading down Romans 1 we will find a big, long list of things that people get involved with and do when they do not listen to God’s ways. It is a direct comparison to what people are doing today, some in the name of Jesus. Choose life! Choose health! Choose happiness and peace!
II. LIFE-CREATING WORDS
Everything God does, He does with words. God is the sower. The Word is the seed. God created the planet through words. The first two chapters of Genesis say again and again: “God said.” The Word of God brings light, life and health. The words of Satan bring death, sickness and disease. You can decide to plant God’s Word or you can decide to plant Satan’s words.
Romans 10:17, “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.”
God’s Word builds faith; it builds confidence and trust. The words of Satan build just the opposite; they build doubt.
From the very beginning of time, God has given man a choice.
In Genesis 2, God told Adam and Eve not to eat from the tree in the midst of the Garden. All the other trees belonged to them and they could do whatever they wanted with them, but the one in the middle was reserved for God. God set things in motion so that man had a choice, he could obey or he could disobey. In the same way, God will always give you a choice. God doesn’t want any robots. He wants people to follow Him because they want to, not because they have to.
I am physically stronger than my wife. I could go home today, grab her, throw her to the ground, put my knee in her back and make her say she loves me. She could resist, but I am pretty sure I could get her down. I have never tried, but I think I can take her. I could make her say those words, but they would not mean anything whatsoever because I made her do it. But if I go home today and she comes up to me and wraps her arms around me and gives me a big, juicy kiss and says, “Honey, I love you so much,” I would get lots of joy out of that, because she had a choice.
God is not going to force you to love Him. He wants you to choose Him. God sowed seed by speaking creation into place, and in Genesis 3:1 we see Satan sowing seed as well.
Genesis 3:1, “Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, Has God said, “you shall not eat of every tree of the Garden?’”
Satan said, “It is not like what God said. God knows if you partake of this tree, then you are going to know good and evil. Your eyes will be open, and you are going to be just like God.” His words brought doubt to Eve. Satan’s words are always seeds of doubt. Eve had a choice. She could obey God’s words, or she could respond to Satan’s words. We know the story, she responded to Satan’s words.
Eve chose to believe Satan’s words and it brought a harvest of death. She died spiritually that day. Don’t let the same be said of you. Make a decision to receive God’s word. Get the words of doubt out of our hearts and prepare our hearts to receive the right seed. Last week I said that the seeds are falling. Well, the truth is that there are good seeds and bad seed that are falling all the time and it is you who decides which seeds you are going to plant. God is the sower who provides the seed, but it is up to you to take the right seed and starting planting them in your good ground.
Tonight we are going to start talking about the types of ground that the seed falls on. Please don’t miss it!
