Parable of the Sower

Very nice piece of music. Thanks to all of you. I do appreciate all the work the choir puts into making things happen. It takes a lot of extra effort and preparation. And Andy's done a very good job in carrying things forward with the choir and our pianists, Amy and Marsha, have really carried the ball on that as well. So we do appreciate very much what you do. One announcement I forgot to make. This was an update and a thank you from Ben and Lee Parsley. They would like to thank you for your prayers about Ben for his recent sinus surgery. The surgery went well and he's recovering at home, so please continue to pray for his complete healing. Those can be very difficult types of surgeries. Our oldest son, Chris, has had a couple of those over the recent years, so I hope he then makes a full recovery. I recently went out into my backyard garden and pulled up all the remnants of my summer garden that I always have to get out. Most of my adult years I have had a garden. It's ironic. My parents would shake their head because growing up that was the last thing they could do, was to get me out in the garden to work in the summertime. And they always had a big garden, put up a lot of tomatoes and beans and everything out of a big garden that they always had, but I didn't like to work it. When I got onto my own, I started putting out my own garden. I always have a little plot of some tomato plants and various things. This year I finally pulled it all up. I know in years past, one of my favorite topics that I've given several times is the idea of a September garden, the sad and neglected gardens that you see in backyards during September. There are some spiritual lessons for that. In this particular year, I'm not going to rehash that particular subject, but the garden I had this year wasn't too bad. The biggest problem I had was, well, I had two problems, tomatoes. When I put out the tomatoes, I either picked up the tomatoes from the wrong bin at the nursery, at the greenhouse, or someone else had done the same thing and put them back in the wrong slot because I wound up with a garden full of cherry tomatoes this year. It only takes about one or two bushes of cherry tomatoes to really go a long way, as those of us that garden know, but I had a whole garden full of them this year. So we had cherry tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, and cherry tomatoes. I had a nice heirloom tomato, and everything else, so-so. The one instructive lesson out of my garden this year had to do with my squash. I had to replant my squash several times. Now, you think zucchini and yellow squash and zucchini, just throw them out in the backyard, kick a little bit of dirt over them, and they tend to grow in everywhere. Well, the first two plantings didn't grow. So it was finally on the third planting that I got some to germinate and come out of the hills and produce some squash for us. So we did wind up with a decent crop of squash this year. But it reminded me of seed. And you get some good seed, and you get some bad seed. There have been years that I planted squash, and it germinated and came up, but I had no fruit. They were whatever they were. They were asexual. They just didn't produce. Big green leaves, but no fruit. This year I had to replant several times.

And I got to thinking about this, especially after our work on the Kingdom of God seminars that concluded for us here last week. And a question was put to me about some things, and I thought the explanation probably is found right in one of the most important and interesting and distinctive of the parables that Jesus Christ gave about the Kingdom of God in Matthew 13. So I'd like for you to turn to Matthew 13, and I want to spend a few minutes with you this afternoon looking at the parable of the sower and the seed.

Matthew 13. This should be a familiar story to us, but I recognize it not always understood by everyone.

This is one of Christ's longest and also most instructive parables. A parable is a story. It's not necessarily a metaphor. It's not an allegory. It's basically just a story, and it explains an abstract idea in concrete terms.

In this case, so many of these parables deal with the Kingdom of God. This one deals with the Kingdom of God, which is a big subject. Believe me, as we've gotten into this, as we've worked up our presentations and thinking about it and beginning to work on these seminars and dealing with an audience today that we're trying to reach out with, it is a very large concept, misunderstood, and it's rather abstract for an audience today. What do you mean the Kingdom of God? If people think of a Kingdom today, they think of something in the ancient world, or maybe they think about the British royal family and a king and a queen in this case, but it's hard to relate to the Kingdom of God.

What does that mean? Christ, really, there was a similar problem in his day, so he talked about it in some concrete terms. In this parable of the sower and seed, he brings it down into a picture that people could relate to, as we should as well, because so many of us also plant seed. We raise a garden. We know the mechanics of it.

I don't know of anyone here who's ever tried to make a full living as a farmer in our day, but Ralph Zimmerman plants a pretty good garden every year, and Ron Mincey over here puts out a pretty big garden, and people share stuff back and forth. I've just got a little postage-stamp-sized plot in my backyard, as do many of you. But we know what it means to put seed in the ground and to see it grow and bear fruit. So this is a parable that should be easy for us to put some concrete ideas to the kingdom of God on.

That's exactly what Christ meant it to be. As we go through this, it's going to be important that we learn where each of us fall within this parable. Because, yes, you are in this parable. I'm in this parable. Every one of us in this room is in this parable. So it has something to teach every one of us. Let's look at it in overview. Let's read through it. Let's begin in verse 1, Matthew 13.

On the same day, Jesus went out of the house and sat by the sea. And great multitudes were gathered together to him, so that he got into a boat and he sat. The whole multitude stood on the shore. So he had kind of a natural amphitheater. When your voice goes out, it projects over water. It does get amplified, so they would not have had a problem hearing what he said.

He spoke many things to them in parables. Say, Behold, a sower went out to sow. Now, again, this was an idea that the people in the first century could understand because Galilee was largely an agrarian society. Eighty to ninety percent of the inhabitants of the Galilee of the time of Jesus made their living and their sustenance by farming, whatever size plot they had.

So everyone knew this. This was not an industrialized country and region in its day. A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell on the way by the wayside, and the birds came and devoured them. Some fell on stony places where they did not have much earth, and they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth. But when the sun was up, they were scorched. And because they had no root, they withered away. And some, a third category, fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them. But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop.

Some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty. He who has ears to hear, he said, let him hear. So in nine verses here, very short, he describes four categories of people who hear a message. In this case, it's four types of soil, four types of ground. Now, we jump down to verse 18. This is where he explains what he just said, verses 18 to 23.

So let's go ahead and read the explanation that Christ gave. Verse 18, Therefore I hear the parable of the sower, When anyone hears the word of the kingdom. So he's talking about the kingdom of God. It's the gospel, and does not understand it. So the seed, as you want to explain this, the seed is the message of the kingdom. When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart.

This is he who received seed by the wayside. But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy. Yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles. Now he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word. And the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful.

But he who received the seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces some 100-fold, some 60, and some 30. So there's four categories of people and four types of soil that he's really mentioning and describing here in this parable of the kingdom of God.

The seed is the gospel. Now again, as I said, this is something that the people would have easily been able to understand in their day. And it's interesting to, again, know a little bit about the methods of sowing a field of wheat or barley or rye or whatever it was that they were growing at this time in Galilee and the way in which it was done. We see our big farms that we pass on the interstate mostly today, and we see how well laid out they are. And if you happen to pass by in the spring when they're sowing, putting in the beans or the corn, there are two main crops that we have around here, you see them with the machinery going up and down, up and down, and it's very precise.

That machine is planting the corn or the beans at specified intervals within each row. Excuse me, each row is exactly the same width throughout the field. So when you see it then a few weeks later begin to come up, you can look down and you can see that it's so well laid out, it's pretty sight to look at. But it's all mathematical, scientific farming today has come a long way, but that's the way it's done. But it was not the way it was done in Jesus' day.

They basically had two methods of sowing the seed in a field. Now, a field would have been much smaller, would not have been multiple acres like we see today. A person would have had their plot, it may have been on a hillside, if it was on a hillside they would have had to have worked it, terraced it, and removed a lot of stones. Between each of the plots, several feet wide, you know, several meters long in some cases, but there would have always been pathways between them for people to walk. Because people, in those days, they walk from one place to the other, and they walk through people's fields and holdings.

And there would have been paths along the way, separating a lot of the various plots and trees and everything else. It would not have been quite as symmetrical, clean, neat as what we see in our fields today, in many cases in some of the areas of Galilee. The way that they would have sown that seed would basically have been by two methods. The hand broadcast method, a farmer would have had a sack of seed, and he would go through pulling out a handful at a time and broadcast spreading it. That's the way it would have been done. And if he was pretty good at what he was done, he wouldn't have wasted too much. But when you throw seed out like that, the wind is going to pick some of it up, or you're going to throw a little bit too far, and some of it is going to fall off onto one of those pathways, or into maybe a hedgerow where there was a lot of stones, and it wouldn't all go into the soil.

There was another way by which it may have been done. This would have been the lazy farmer's way of doing it. They would have put two sacks across a donkey, and then poked some small holes in the bottom of those sacks and sent the donkey down through the fields, and just let the swag back and forth of the donkey kind of work that seed out of the bags into the ground, which can be an effective way.

The farmer is setting under a tree in the shade of the day, or in the heat of the day. The problem with that donkey is, he's not quite as efficient as a John Deere tractor. When he gets to the end of the road, he makes his turn, and he's going to turn out into probably a hedgerow or a pathway, and all the while there's no stop on that bag of seed.

So some of that seed is going to fall on some of the hard-packed ground of a path. So when Jesus talked about seed falling on stony ground or on unfertile ground, they again would have picked it up right there because they would have pictured that in their mind's eye as he's explaining it all. And so, probably farmers had perfected other ways to economize and maximize all of their seed and everything during that period of time, but that's the setting. And that's the way that it was done. And this is how people would have been thinking through their mind and their mind's eye as Jesus was telling this parable.

But he was not giving them an agricultural lesson. Jesus was giving them a lesson about the kingdom of God, and he was giving them a lesson about themselves. And that's where we need to focus. And so, keep in mind, with what I've already said, you're in this parable. I'm in this parable. Everyone in the world is in this parable, whether you want to be in it or not.

Because this parable encompasses every broad category of individual that Christ wanted to address of attitudes, impact, fruit, of the work of his Spirit in the seed of the Gospel as it has spread at any given moment in time in the world. All right? So let's look at it. Let's go back into it, and let's look at it a little bit more.

And let's understand what is being said here. In verse 18, Therefore hear the parable of the sower. When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is he who received seed by the wayside. This is the first category. Category 1. You neatly categorize it. And this category, quite frankly, refers to most people. The wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown. A very clear reference to Satan. The work of God in this world, in this age, as so many other scriptures will show us, is working against the God of this world.

And Satan has his methods and his ways of distracting or taking away the impact, the value of the gospel to a person's mind and heart in today's society, in today's world. And no matter how effective you might be at any given time in history, and today we can be quite effective. We can be quite dynamic in the way we would sow the seeds of the gospel that we have today.

We have mass media at our disposal. We have radio, television, print. And most importantly, we have the Internet today. And it is with the Internet that we can virtually reach the world. You will remember, when Aaron Booth was here on Pentecost, showing us what the innovations of technology, as we've harnessed them through our website, can do to reach around the world in virtually every language today.

We can sow a lot of seed today. And we are. Anyone who is using the Internet in that way. Now, you get, you sow a lot of seed. You gather in a lot of different, interesting comments. Television has its role. Print has another role. Personal exposure and communication, such as what we've recently done with these Kingdom of God seminars, is another way as well.

And they all work to disseminate the knowledge about the Kingdom of God. But not everybody is at the same point in life. So much of what goes out today, people are not interested. There are whole segments of the society they're not interested, they tell us, in religion. Or they're suspicious of religion, primarily the younger demographics. And have a completely different view of religion than an older demographic. Which, for many of us, we can relate to. So there are whole swaths of people in our world today that are irreligious. And there's whole swaths of people who are religious.

Or spiritually inclined. Or on a journey. Or searching. However we want to phrase it, but They're believers to one degree or another in whatever they have been raised in. Whatever they have come to believe. And they are at various points in life. And their receptors are at various stages. But the broad majority of people are not interested. And Satan's distractions have created conditions to where people are not going to listen to what is there.

And it becomes very easy for Satan through the various devices. A society of distractions that has been created to snatch away what has been sown in a person's heart. And we see that. You see that all the time. People are just not going to respond to the message that is put right in front of them. And you see that. People are not interested in religion. They may be interested in something spiritual, but it's not the religion. And it's not, if you will, a hard religion that requires some dedication and sacrifice, which the truth of God does. Let's face it. To devote yourself to keeping the Sabbath, the Holy Days.

To turning your heart and mind toward the values of the law of God, the kingdom of God. That's a radical switch. Frankly, if God's spirit is not beginning to work there, it's not going to happen in its fullest. And even for some who may be seeking. They're just not there, and it gets snatched away. There was once within your midst an individual who was at that point on his way to becoming a multimillionaire. For those of you that go back to the days of Cathedral High School, meeting on Sabbath there, you had sitting in your midst at one time, an individual from the Indianapolis area, who was probably a millionaire at that time, went on to become a multimillionaire.

And at least once, maybe two or three Sabbaths, he attended your congregation with another family member who was a member. But he never came back. He was interested to the degree that his family member had made him interested in enough to give up a Saturday, the Jameel on Saturday morning in those days over Cathedral, to give up a Saturday morning or two to come and listen to what was being said.

But this individual wasn't really seeking the true kingdom of God because he was well on his way to creating his own kingdom on earth through money and wealth in this day and age. And he did. And he never came back. I met him a couple of times.

I had lunch with him one time. Very interesting and engaging person. You would find his name on a building or two around town. But people like that create their own kingdoms on the earth today. They are not ready to devote their life to the kingdom of God to come. And this is a category of people that Jesus is talking about here. What is there and may have been placed to some proximity to their heart gets snatched away. And they go on.

They make good people. They make good neighbors. They make fine citizens in some ways. I mean, that's who they are. They win medals. They win awards. They build things. They do things. But it gets snatched away. That's category one. Let's look at category two.

This is verse 20. He who received the seed on stony places, stony ground, is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy. It makes sense. It answers some questions. It's intriguing. It's delivered in a compelling way. And they receive it with joy. Yet it has no root in himself. But endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles. Persecution, trouble, difficulty. A challenge arises because of the word through some connection with the truth, the church, the way of life that it spouses.

This person receives it with joy, but they don't have any deep root because it's on stony ground. In one of the homes I lived in several years ago, way down in eastern Kentucky, we had a rental home. And I wanted to put a garden out. So I went out in the spring. And it was really stony ground. I mean, I couldn't clear the soil of every rock that was there. It was kind of a lot that a man had built a nice home on. There was a new home at the time. And we were able to rent it. And I had a large yard off to the side. And I went out there to start to dig around and cleared it and cleared it and just kept raking. And the more I raked, the more rocks came up. Couldn't get them all out. Finally, I said, I'm going to put my seed in anyway. So I went ahead and put my seed in, watered it and watched it. And it was a pretty miserable crop. It was a pretty disappointing crop that came up that year. The roots didn't go down too far because they couldn't. It was stony ground. And we didn't can anything or freeze anything out of that particular garden that year. I only tried it once because we moved by the next year. And it didn't happen. So I've worked a little bit of stony ground and know that the futility of it and know that seed that can be put in there is just not going to take place. This is a category of people that Christ is talking about here where they endure for a while. They hear it with joy and they endure for a while. How long is a while? Five years, two years, ten years? I don't know. A while when we say a while from biblical terminology, that could be any number of times, any number of years. Over the years, I've seen people come into the midst of the church and endure for a while and are there with joy. They may be there because of the joy of the person that they kind of got acquainted with, the church with, through this individual. They endured for a while. I had a member one time down in Tennessee. He had come in. These two men, one was a member, the other, they both worked at a large company. The one member was a very fine member, had a good example, and he began talking with his co-worker over a period of time. The co-worker was intrigued about this church he went to and what he was and did. He began attending and became a part of the church.

I got acquainted with him for the short time. I was the pastor there before he left. It was very obvious to me that he had come into the church because of the example of this member, which in itself is not bad and not wrong. God does work that way. But it became very clear that his roots were only as deep as that person.

Now, our example can mean a great deal to someone, and God can use that, but ultimately we have to put down our own roots, our own relationship with God. Because that other person, be it parent, be it brother, be it sister, be it friend, that is such a good example, or by which we found out about the church, they can't overcome for us.

They're not going to stand before God for us. They can't help us through the most enduring of challenges that might come our way. And we can be there for a while. This person endured for a while, but at a time when there came a persecution because of the Word, they did not endure. And they left.

Their roots weren't very deep. And so that is a category of people that you will see at times to be a part of the church. The person can live at the mercy of the moment. At the mercy of the moment.

Things are going along fine, and then a bit of a challenge arises, and boom, their faith is gone. Their confidence is shaken. And the moment transforms them, and they can't endure it. Because they're not anchored firmly in Jesus Christ on a solid foundation. That type of individual is not going to endure.

At any, at trouble, at some point, they stumble. They stumble. People think it's not the church because the church has troubles. All I can say is you need to read your Bible. But we all need to read our Bibles. Category number three. The seed that is among thorns. Verse 22. He who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful. He hears, but it's among thorns.

Now, thorns, weeds are an interesting thing to consider for everyone who tries to garden.

The doctors hear about the cares of the world, the seduction of riches, and various things that can choke out the crop. And there's no harvest. This individual doesn't endure to the harvest. Notice that it says at the end of verse 22, they become unfruitful.

There's no fruit. These first three categories of individuals, they don't bear any fruit. It's only the last category that bears fruit. We'll get to that in a minute. But these first three don't bear any fruit. They don't have enough root. The seed is snatched away before it can even germinate. Or they're among thorns, and they hear, but the cares of the world, the deceitfulness of riches, choke out the word, and they become unfruitful. So they don't even make it to the harvest.

And it's important that you remember this fact that we can glean here. There is a harvest. There will be a harvest. But to get to it, you have to bear fruit. To be a part of a harvest, you have to bear fruit. But it gets choked out. Now, it's interesting just to look at Jesus Himself did continue on. We have to kind of exit out of the parable for a minute here to look at this, because He did explain a little bit more about thorns and weeds.

Beginning in verse 24, He gives another parable of the wheat and the tares. And I'm not going to go through all of that, but I do want to go to verse 26. And because this is another parable about the sowing of seed. And we find that tares, or weeds, are sown among the wheat.

Verse 26 says, When the grain had sprout and produced a crop, the tares also appeared. Now, anyone who has done any amount of gardening knows that certainly weeds don't bear fruit. They can't bear any fruit. There's not going to be any squash. There's not going to be any corn. There's not going to be any tomatoes off of those. They're fruitless. But they take up ground. They take up space within the garden, in the plot.

They take up nutrients, water, out of the soil, right next to the plant that is supposed to be growing toward the point of bearing fruit. And if they grow large enough, they'll even block out the sun to dwarf and stunt the growth of the plant that is supposed to be bearing fruit. Thorns and this type of an environment create some problems for a gardener or a farmer that is trying to grow a crop. Now today we have super pesticides or herbicides, I should say, to zap those things. I mean, you can create a clean row with all these different chemicals that are laid down, and you don't have them.

They're gone. And they take care of it in modern agriculture. I don't use them in my garden, and I have to mulch or get out there and weed. The best laid plants have even mulched and proper spacing and gardening, whatever. You're still going to have weeds. Some of the things I've noticed about some of the weeds, I may be going along and I've mulched and I've picked the weeds, and then one day I'll go out. And I'll see this weed as tall as my tomato plant, and I thought it was a tomato plant. But it's growing right there next to it, and it kind of snuck in. So I have to reach in there and pull it out because it's taken up space, and it's stunning the growth of what I want off of that tomato plant.

But it looks like the tomato plant. Christ, in this parable of the Terrace, He says, they grow together and you can't tell the difference. Christ said, let them alone to the harvest, lest you pluck up the good with the bad, I'll take care of it. I'll separate them at the harvest or at the time.

Back in the parable of the sower and the seed, we're told that the tares and the wheat, or the seed, the good seed and the bad seed all be together there. And there's going to be thorny ground. And the weeds are going to choke out the life. There's a lesson here and a warning that among God's people, at any given time, there are those who are not laboring with the Spirit of God.

That's what this parable is telling us. There will be thorns. There will be problems that will take away the life and the word and create deceit and problems within the midst of the garden. The challenges for those who are seeking to bear fruit is to be able to recognize that.

It's one of the hard facts of life in the Church of God. That there is a thorny ground where weeds and tares can grow. The challenge is to recognize that. I've come to realize that there's a time to make a hard decision and there's a time not to make a hard decision. Probably over the years, I have fallen too far on the side of not making the hard decision. And I find that God has had to make the decision Himself. Or make it known. Make the weeds known, the tares known. You learn. 38 years doing this job and you still learn.

The ground that you're working with, the type of seed that is there, the weeds, the thorns, and the tares. And the type of ground and what is taking place. This is a warning and an instruction. Let's go into category 4. Verse 23, He who received seed on the good ground is He who hears the word and understands it. Who indeed bears fruit and produces some 100-fold, some 60, and some 30. Good ground, He mentions. The word is implanted in good ground. People understand. They heed it and they begin to bear fruit. Anyone who's had a good garden plot knows that it takes a while to prepare good ground.

What the ingredients of good ground really is. Good ground is rich in nutrients. It is clear of stones. To the best efforts, it's clear of weeds and tough thorns and things that can grow in there. You pull those out. Sometimes you have to dig deep down to get some of the types of thorny plants that grow in our gardens and get the root out.

The best efforts that you make aren't always complete because they'll still be there. They'll come up and you have to work at it. But good ground is possible and good ground will allow things to grow. I want to point out something here that I haven't pointed out in looking at these four categories of the soil. Notice that every one of them, everyone hears the Word. All four of them. Just as it says in verse 19, when anyone hears the Word, they all hear the Word to one degree or the other and then they act on it or don't act on it.

But they all hear the Word. How do they hear? How do they hear the Word of the Kingdom? Well, it's very simple. They hear the Word of the Kingdom by the preaching of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God. Hold your hand here, or put it in the marker, and turn over to Romans 14. This is why, again, I say that every one of us is in this parable to one degree or the other. Everyone is covered by this.

How do they hear? Romans chapter 10 and verse 14. Paul tells us how people hear. A very important passage here in Romans 10 and verse 14. He says, Romans 10 and verse 14.

Are we all there? Okay. Romans 10 and 14. How do they hear? How do they believe in whom they've not heard? And how do they hear without a preacher? The answer is you don't hear without a preacher. You don't believe unless you've heard the Word. He's talking here in the context of Israel. It goes on in verse 15, How shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, Who bring glad tidings of good things.

Who bring glad tidings of good things. Paul here is talking about the preaching of the gospel. But he says people are not going to believe in him, Jesus, if they've not heard him preached. They're not going to hear that message without someone taking it to them. Without a sower going out to sow the seed and to spread the Word of the kingdom of God. They're not going to hear it. That's how people hear. So when you go back to the parable of the sower and the seed, they hear everyone by preaching of the gospel and whatever method as it comes to them, as they run across it, as they click across it, they land on a website, they pick up a magazine, they pick up a booklet, they see an example and they say, what are you a part of?

What makes you so happy? Where are you going every year? Why aren't you here on the Sabbath or on Saturday to them? Why are you such a good neighbor? Why aren't you worried about the stock market? What gives you such a calm equilibrium about life? Who are you and where did you come from? Why do you believe what you do? And they go searching. They don't like what they hear where they are, and they go searching and they find something that begins to answer their questions.

Or they begin to read the Bible, and they read the Bible and they find out, I should be keeping the Sabbath. Because when you start to read the Bible, you start to learn about the Sabbath. If you just read the Bible, if you had nothing else to read, you'd be reading along Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, on into the story of Israel and the prophets, you come to a conclusion, as many people have done down through the centuries, that you should be keeping the Sabbath, and you start going to look for a Sabbath-keeping group.

So you get out today on the Internet, or you drive up and down the streets, you find a Sabbath-keeping church, which in some places is easy, in some ways it's hard. The Internet makes it easier today. The way by which the word is spread, people are drawn, and then what happens, it's such an interesting, dynamic, compelling, complex method, but those who are charged with the sowing of the seed have to get out and do it.

The United Church of God is committed to this mission. We've been given a wake-up call. We found our brand, if you want to use that modern term. It's called the Kingdom of God. The reason... We've gone through an interesting experience in the last two years with a, quote, branding experience. I was in the middle of all of that.

You know how that came about? It came about as a part of a strategic plan that somebody got the idea we needed to map out, which we did. But there was a little box in that strategic plan that basically said, who are we and what were we supposed to do? That's my paraphrase of it. Unfortunately, the ones who wrote it were the leaders who were supposed to know who they were and what they were supposed to do.

And they didn't. And they still don't. And so we got off into a little bit of an excursion with a company that helped us create our brand essence. It's interesting. The Kingdom of God is really our brand. And what they learned about us, and we paid them a little bit of money to find out what we're all about, still fits into the message of the Kingdom of God. More of that down the road. It's not all lost. But the brand, if you want to look at it, it's the Kingdom of God. Go, you therefore, into all the world and preach the gospel.

This gospel shall be preached in all of the world as a witness. So we've had a wake-up call. You've heard me say it in so many different ways. That's what we're going to do. That's what we're going to go forward in doing. This Kingdom of God seminars is a godsend. They truly are a godsend to all of us. And I've been encouraged at the seeds of the gospel that, frankly, have started to be sown back again, once again, within the Church of God.

Because you can't go wrong when you focus on the gospel of the Kingdom of God. It was on Jesus Christ's lips. It's all He talked about. And it better be on the lips of the Church of God. It better be in our hearts and our minds. We are committed to doing that. They've sharpened our focus on the mission of the Church. And if I can take a digression for a moment, folks, the opportunity that I've been given in the new job that is before me, that I'll be moving down to the office to engage with, is really in shaping the message of the Church going forward.

That's what's been given, the opportunity that has been given to me. It's interesting, somebody asked me, after I announced it, do you think you're qualified to do what you're being asked to do? It's a good question. And my answer was yes and no. Yes and no. Yes, because it's a lifelong passion and focus. I've always had a passion to be a part of the work. That's why I went off to Ambassador College, second only to finding a wife.

But that's what I cut my eye teeth on in the Church. When I was 12 years old from on, that's what I was taught by my pastor. You see, I didn't have a pastor that yelled at me, or abused me, or detracted me in any way by his personal life.

And I sat and I listened to him. I didn't play with my iPhone. I didn't send tweets in church. I didn't send instant messages back and forth. I didn't read novels in church when I was 13, 14, 15. I listened. I took notes. And we talked about it. I didn't even get to take a nap on the floor in those days. And I was too old for an Etch-a-Sketch. Etch-a-Sketch was the computer of the early 60s. And I kind of missed even the Etch-a-Sketch period. I used to go to the feast and I'd see these kids sitting back there with their Etch-a-Sketch, and I didn't have one. I had a Bible in my lap.

Now, these were, I know, they were 5, 6, 7-year-olds, and that's fine for that. But I realized, at age 12, 13, I realized I'd kind of missed the Etch-a-Sketch age. So when Dr. Hay was talking about Isaiah and Zephaniah and Hezekiah and Mordecai and all these guys, I was trying to find out where they were, what they were all about. So that's what I cut my eye teeth on in the church.

So it's been a passion and it's been a focus for me. So yes, in that sense, am I qualified? From that point of view, I guess so. But no, because it's such a large and important job, I feel very inadequate, what I'm being asked to do. To be honest, short of one man, I've not seen any other person in my whole history that has an altogether in one package anyway who's ever been working in the media, short of one other person. So I'll do the best that I can to make a contribution as part of the team.

And with God's help and the prayers of everybody, I think I can make a contribution. And that's what I expect to make an effort to do. Now how did this opportunity come about for me? I've shared a little bit of it with you, but let me share a little bit more, because I think you folks sitting here this afternoon deserve an answer.

As I said, told you earlier, Dennis Luecker called me, and he offered me the job. I had not lobbied for the job. I had not even hinted that I wanted to do the job. The job didn't even exist. And though I've been running down there at least once a month for several years, as I told them, it wasn't always nice to visit the home office.

But in recent days, it's been nice to visit the home office. But I did my job, and it was always good to point my car west and come back to Indianapolis. And not stay there, because this was my home, this was everything else. I did my job over there, whether it was teaching, council work, Beyond Today, whatever else, made my contribution, came home.

I was always glad to come home, even in the good days of recent times. So I never lobbied for this, not even one iota. It was never... that's just not the way I operate. He called me that Friday morning, and he asked me to come in. And I should note, brethren, he asked me. He did ask me. I was not given an ultimatum. I was asked.

It's very important for all of you to know that. I was asked to come. And so I said, well, think about it. I said, this is a big change for Debbie and I. Thirty-eight years, I got to get dressed in the morning to go into an office. My biggest commute has been from my bedroom to my office for 38 years. That's my commute, with a stop at the coffee pot. Okay? But now I got to get up earlier?

Well, not earlier. I always get up early. I just have to get up and get dressed earlier in a way to be presentable to the public in that sense, to go out and keep more regular hours. Debbie is no longer a pastor's wife. When I make this transition, I will just be an elder.

And that'll be fine with me. I'm ready to just be an elder. I won't be a pastor. She won't be a pastor's wife. We're looking forward to that transition. Just call me Elder. Elder Darius? Or just call me for dinner. I don't care. Mr. Luecker gave me the choice to say yes or no, folks. There was no ultimatum there. Who do you believe? There was at least one person who thought that I would say no. And it was always our choice. I said, Well, come in on Monday and we'll talk to you about it.

So we prayed about it, we talked about it, we thought about it. And when we went to the office to sit down and talk with Mr. Luecker, I said, Look, we want to know, is this of God or of men?

I've been involved with moves before men were involved. I said, I just want to know, is this of God or is this of men? We talked about it for a while, and to the best of our human ability, we all agreed in that meeting that it was of God. And so we decided to say yes. I could have said no, and I would still be the pastor of Indianapolis and Fort Wayne. No strings attached, nothing else said.

I'd still see my grandkids every week at church, and have them run up and jump into my arms. I'd still be in a very comfortable little home, not having to worry about selling it, or walk through somebody else's home and look at their dragons and get into all of this. That was our choice. But an opportunity like this only knocks once, and so I said yes. And we knew that, and I feel very confident, that all of this has come about in God's way and it's God's timing. I'll share one other personal thought with you. In recent months, I'd come to feel that I had stayed too long in Indianapolis. Twenty-one years is a long time.

But I'd come to feel that I'd been just too long. But I've changed my mind. In recent weeks, Debbie and I have come to the conviction that we've stayed just the right amount of time. Just the right amount of time. Not too long, not too short. Not too hard, not too soft. Just right. As the fairy tale says. Just right. It was long enough for some things to come to light and to be resolved in God's way. And I'll leave it at that.

We're moving on, and it's time for us to move on. It's time for us to make a change. And we will miss you. We will miss many things, but we've got good memories. It's coming at a point. I turned 60 and this and that, and we kind of move on. And turning 60 has been kind of a milestone for me, and this happens at the same time.

But it's the right time. And we're moving on, and another man and woman will come and work in this field, because it's God's field, and it's just as God wants it done. God's timing, if we all can learn whatever's going on in your life and my life at any given time, when we leave it to God, we seek His will, and we work for God, God's timing is always perfect. So when we try to take it into our own hands, we try to force it by our own will, or we get emotional, or we do things that we think should be done, that we take it out of God's hands. Then it does become a work of men, and of men.

And so we feel that God's timing is just right. And all of us should come to that, no matter what challenges, decisions, crossroads that we come to. And I'm being given an opportunity to help shape and work with a very good team of people, help shape the message of the media of the church. And I can't say no to that. It's what I've worked for all my life in many ways, and the timing is right, and it's not something that I sought, nor is it something I'm being forced into.

So I hope that all of you that are here in this room this afternoon will understand that, and that we took that decision based on a clean slate in front of us without any other issues there. Other people make issues, and that's between them and God. Let's go back to the parable. I want to bring this to point. There's four categories of hearers that we can look at here in Matthew 13.

Four categories of hearers. The first category of person that was snatched away, that person has a closed mind. That's the hard ground. That's where the seed sown can be easily snatched away by the wicked one. Which, again, 99.9% of people walk into the face of the earth today. This is not their time of salvation. God's going to work with them in a time when the ground will be better for them.

But the pride of life today can prevent God's spirit from laying and penetrating. That's one category of hearer. Don't let your pride of life, don't let a closed mind, not let the seed of God's spirit do its work within you. The second category, where there is no root, the stony ground, that person has a mind that's pretty shallow, kind of rocky, but nothing can put down deep roots. There's no critical thinking that is allowed in that type of mind. Life is one party hanging around, hanging with people. There's no critical thinking. That type of person never finishes what they start. They bounce from one project to another, from one idea to another, from one church to another, from one spiritual idea to another.

They can't put down any roots and let those roots nourish them because there's very shallow thinking, there's very shallow ground there. They always have to move on to something new. They get bored. They're driven by emotion too much or driven by relationships. That is shallow ground.

Sometimes relationships can become idols for us, the people we feel we have to be with. The third category is a person with many interests. It says the seat among thorns in verse 22, they hear the word but the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches choke out the word, they become unfruitful. This type of person is always busy. Good people, fine people, doing good things, but they're too busy to pray, too busy to study.

They're not bad people, they're not evil people, they're just too busy. I can bring out the little story that I've read many times of Satan's convention of his demons, that I've read to you at times, where Satan had a convention and he sent out his demons to occupy people's lives and minds and keep them busy and distracted from hearing the word of God. And it's true in its application. Maybe it's a true story too. At that realm I don't know. But the cares of riches, the cares of life, the deceitfulness of life, because we're too busy, reflects a life and a mind that the seed of the gospel can't find nourishment there.

They're well-intentioned, again, not bad people, but they can't have a spiritual life. I mentioned when I go into some of these homes we've been going into, nobody has a library these days. I always like to look to see what books people read. And when I see that they read vampire books, I think, oh boy, what are they feeding on? But some of the others, you kind of look at the peak and, well, what do they read? What kind of a mind do they have?

And the reflective life is hard to maintain for any of us today, because of all the distractions that are a part of us. The fourth person, where there is good ground, is a person who truly hears. They stop to listen. They will stop and listen to a friend. They'll listen to a wise counselor. They'll listen to God. And they seek to hear. And they want to understand. They want to obey. They will develop a spiritual hearing. Truly a spiritual life. Where do you fall? Four soils. Four minds. Different responses to the message of the kingdom of God.

How is the message of the kingdom of God? The gospel of the kingdom, how has it taken root in your life? How deep does it go? What kind of soil do you provide for it? As I said at the beginning, the most important lesson from this parable, ultimately, and the most encouraging, is that there's a harvest. With the last category, we find that there is a harvest, where people bear fruit 160 or 30-fold. You have to get to that point. But there will be a harvest. That's why this parable is also telling us, as a collective entity of the church, that we've got to keep sowing the seed. You keep putting it out there, because there will be a harvest.

Even when the seed falls on stony ground, when it gets snatched away, when it gets mingled in with thorns, there will be a harvest. God's kingdom is going to come. There will be a harvest at the end of the age, we're told, in other places. And those who have borne the fruit of the Spirit of God will be harvested.

Then will come the time when the whole period from Pentecost to the fall period of the Holy Days, which we're now upon, with trumpets, atonement, tabernacles, and the last great day, all that fall harvest will begin to be harvested. And the work of the church of God through the ages, not just our time, but through the ages, from the time of 31 A.D., will be realized. And God will begin to harvest those as the first fruits, and then the sowing will continue. But the difference is, in the millennium, the ground's going to be better. It won't be stony.

It won't be thorny. And mines will be open, because the evil one will not be there to snatch away what has been sown. And the harvest will be greater. So the parable of the sower and the seeds, one of the most interesting, important, inspiring and encouraging of the parables that Christ gave, because it talks about the Kingdom of God. And it is a sure promise of the harvest that that kingdom will bring, and will continue to bring, on through the millennium and on through eternity.

He gave it to us right now in the church to understand, ask ourselves some critical thinking, some critical questions. Where do we fit in the parable? Are we bearing the fruit? Or is it being choked out? That's the question that all of us must ask ourselves. Ryan asked the question, how important are the Holy Days to us? They're all important. They're everything. Because they point us to the plan of God and what He is going to bring, ultimately with that kingdom to this earth. So let's know where we are in the parable. Let's make sure that that seed has taken firm hold and is putting down good roots and is continuing to bear fruit in our lives.