He That Hath Ears to Hear, Part IV — Thorns and Weeds

03/24/2008, 9:00 am -- by | No Comments

Don\’t close your eyes,
Don\’t close your eyes —
This is your life . . .
Is it everything you dreamed that it would be?
When the world was younger . . .
— Jon Foreman, Switchfoot

I have a friend named Chuck, and I remember a conversation we had seven or eight years ago about how our zeal for the things of God can diminish with time. We were reminiscing about when we first got saved — how we were going to change the world, how we witnessed to anything that moved, how we went on the streets, and handed out tracts, and preached in the jails. In fact, Chuck made a confession to me that we both found quite humorous at the time. He said that he was so on fire for God when he first got saved and started reading the Bible, that he became absolutely convinced he would be one of the “two witnesses” spoken of in Revelation; he could not conceive of his life ending any other way.

I don\’t really need to tell you the rest, do I? I saw Chuck\’s wife in Wal-Mart a while back on a Sunday afternoon, and she told me they are “out of church,” as they call it down here. Why? They are building a new house, and the weekends are the only time they have to oversee the work being done by subcontractors. When the house is finished, though, they are planning to look for another church.

In this last section of the parable, Jesus compares people who get consumed by “the cares and riches of this life” to the seed that falls among thorns and eventually gets choked out. I\’m a pure exegetic preacher, so I see no other way to deal with metaphors than to trust that Jesus was correct when he defined them as cares and riches. How could there be another application than what Jesus so clearly stated? Cares and riches — these choke the word of God in our life so that we bring no fruit to maturity.

Cares are unavoidable; we have to work, mow our lawns, raise our kids, file our taxes and pay our bills. But we cannot let these choke out the work of God in our life. That\’s what Luke 13 and Matthew 7 are all about. We cannot live like the unbelievers. We cannot worry about the things that the world worries about.

Riches, Paul told Timothy, are deceitful and hurtful, plunging men into all manner of evil. The pursuit of riches has left many a person “pierced through with many sorrows.” Any conception you have of Christianity that allows you to put Jesus on a back shelf while you deal with your life, or pursue riches, can only hurt you and bog you down. It will only kill the work of the word of God in your life, and it will keep you from accomplishing what you have already heard from God.

He That Hath Ears to Hear, Part III — Stony Ground

03/20/2008, 1:30 am -- by | No Comments

Are you in a pattern in your life where you start well, but never finish? Is the cycle of your walk with God one of repentance, proclamation, and good intentions — but at the end of the day, no apparent progress? Does no work of God in your life last very long before you again backslide and run from God?

This is what Jesus addresses in the next section of our parable — “the seed that fell on stony ground,” those with no root who wither away when trouble or persecution comes.

What keeps the Word from sinking down and developing strong roots? The problem is what’s below the surface — the hidden rock, the obstacle that keeps us from doing business with God. The only reason for a root not to progress to a deeper place to nourishment and water is the interposition of something immovable and unyielding.

What are you hiding? What are you afraid of? Moving this object will not be as horrible as you think.

God loves you. Anything that He requires of you in exposing sin — your own or perhaps another’s — will only be a blessing. He has no desire to harm you, but some things cannot be healed until they are exposed to the light, so that they can be killed.

In the famous tract, My Heart, Christ’s Home, the writer compares salvation to literally turning his house over to Jesus. Jesus strolls through it, looking at the library, workshop and other rooms — and many changes have to be made. It turned into a horror story for me when Jesus found the hall closet and commented on the stench emanating from it. The writer was put off by the request to clean out that dark little closet, so Jesus turned around to leave, saying, “I’ll be out on the front porch. I can’t stay in a place that smells like this.” The writer relented, and he was finally freed from the secret sins he had buried in that small dark place.

I recently saw a news story about a 29-year-old youth pastor who came forward to confess that he had killed a man at 16, before he was saved. He had been hiding it for 13 years. I can’t imagine the courage this required, but I too have been in the place where I’ve said to God, “No! I can’t dig this up! It’s too deep! It’s too messy! Everyone will see it and the scar it leaves on the ground! You can’t ask this of me!”

He can ask, though, and He does. And if we refuse to yield, the growth — the relationship — is over, until we relent and let Him move the thing that lies hidden, below the surface.

But I promise you: it always brings joy and indescribable peace when it’s accomplished.

He That Hath Ears to Hear, Part II — The Wayside

03/14/2008, 10:30 am -- by | No Comments

Read Part One here.

If you find yourself sleeping through church, please give me just five minutes! If you find yourself unable or unwilling to read your Bible or pray, because you believe that God has nothing to say to you anyway, please read this article!

In the Parable of the Sower, Jesus describes four types of soil that we offer God to work with in our life; the first He calls “the wayside.” This is where you are — but you don’t have to stay there.

The wayside is the ground that borders the fertile field — trampled by traffic, beaten, barren, and impenetrable. Listen to the explanation He gave His disciples about this ground. He said that when God speaks in your presence, it hits a hard and unbreakable surface. It lays there for but a moment before the devil swoops in like a bird and carries it away.

In this parable, God is always speaking, always casting out his word: to move and motivate you; to free you and heal you; to make you what you need to be. By tuning out, you have given the enemy the right to intercept and carry off anything God says to you. You think that the One who loves you most never calls, or writes, or visits, but in reality, you’ve let the devil take over the phone, check your mail and answer the door.

The first thing to do is realize what has happened. Take a stand by praying, “Speak, Lord, for Your servant is listening.” The next step is softening up the ground. But how did it get so hard and how can you soften it up again? In the parable it was hardened by a constant traffic of feet, carts and hooves. This constant barrage of objects and instruments beat the ground, making it hard and impenetrable. How do we change that? First, you must shut everything else down. Close the road to traffic. Turn off the television, the radio and the computer. Put away the hunting rifle, the fishing pole, the toolbox — whatever you distract yourself with. You have to eliminate distractions and get before the Lord.

Charles Finney wrote an excellent tract in the 1800s, called Breaking up the Fallow Ground. It was based on Hosea 10:12: “Break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the Lord, till he comes and reigns righteousness upon you.” Your ground will not be barren unless you leave it barren. To be good for tilling, ground must be broken up and plowed. This only happens in your heart by an intentional act of your will.

You must take control and get your heart into the place where you can, and will, hear what the Spirit is saying to you.

He That Hath Ears to Hear

03/13/2008, 12:45 pm -- by | No Comments

I believe that the most pressing problem in the body of Christ — the thing that most hinders growth in Christians, leaving them confused and frustrated in their walk — is hearing from God. This article is the first in a series on hearing from God, taken from the Parable of the Sower.

Part One: The Importance of Hearing

In this parable, Jesus talks about a man sowing seed; He lists the four types of soil where the seed lands, then compares them to those who hear the word of God. Telling His disciples that “the seed is the word of God,” He specifically connects each type of soil to people. It is also important to note that when He tells and explains the parable in Matthew 13, He uses the words “hear,” “perceive,” and “understand” over 20 times! Clearly His point is to instruct us on how to hear from God.

But how important is hearing from God? Is it optional? Is it something that preachers and other spiritually-minded people do for us? Isn’t that why we pay preachers anyway, to hear from God and bring it down from the mountain to us like Moses did? No, no, no and no.

The Bible says that we are saved by faith, but it also says that “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” So a man cannot even be a Christian if he has not heard from God. Paul wrote to the Romans: “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.” A person must be in an active relationship with God’s Spirit — listening and obeying — to be considered a child of God.

Can you conceive of being married to someone with whom you never have any interaction? No talking, no listening, no times of intimacy? You are the bride of Christ; you must hear His voice! While Jesus is teaching this parable in Luke, someone tells Him that His family has come to see Him, and he says: “My mother and brothers are those who hear the Word of God and keep it!”

Hearing from God isn’t just important; it is everything to the Christian. In Deuteronomy 8, God tells the Israelites: “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.” Hearing from God is the first step in faith. James teaches that the blessed of God are not hearers only, but are both hearers and doers. He goes on to teach that true faith is a process, which must begin with hearing, proceed to belief and culminate in action.

The next three articles in this series will deal with the types of soil that keep us from hearing, cutting us off from fellowship with God and short-circuiting the work of faith in our lives.