The Sower

Matthew 13:3-9, Mark 4:3-9, Luke 8:4-8

The Parable

Matthew 13:3-9

“Then He spoke many things to them in parables, saying: ‘Behold, a sower went out to sow.  And as he sowed, some seed fell 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 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, some thirty.  He who has ears to hear, let him hear!’”

The Lord’s explanation

Matthew 13:18-23

“’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.  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 seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.’”

Lesson

The seed is the same in all instances, the Word of God, but how it reacts in the heart of man, how it grows or not, is dependent upon the heart of each man, whether his heart is good soil or not, that is, is he still willing to be changed.  The Israelites are a prime example; they had closed their ears to hearing the word, and were unwilling to be changed, Matthew 13:15.

That the devil came and snatched away the word from some, this was not done without the person’s consent, that is, he didn’t come and prevent them from believing against their will.  But these are those who prefer the devil over the Lord, who prefer evil over good, and when the good comes to them, that is, the gospel, they don’t listen because they prefer evil.

“Many are called, but few are chosen,” Matthew 22:14.  Many, that is, the entirety of mankind, is the soil in which the seed of the gospel may grow; few are those in which it actually produces a crop.

The Seed Growing Secretly

Mark 4:26-29

The Parable

“And He said, ‘The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground, and should sleep by night and rise by day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he himself does not know how.  For the earth yields crops by itself: first the blade, then the head, after that the full grain in the head.  But when the grain ripens, immediately he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.’”

Lesson

The soil for the seed of the gospel is the heart of man, and once the seed has been sown, it is up to the man whether he accepts the word of God or not, whether he chooses to follow it or not.  How the gospel works upon a man’s heart, we don’t really know.  It isn’t in the ability, nor is it the responsibility, of the man sowing the seed to cause it’s growth in another; this God sees to, for “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase,” 1 Corinthians 3:6.  All the gardener can do is plant the seed, and water the crop, doing a little weeding along the way.

Perhaps the harvest is when the seed of the gospel has grown enough in the heart of the man that he is now willing to become a Christian, that the seed has produced it’s crop, a Christian.  He is then harvested into the kingdom of Christ, that is, he is baptized into Christ.  This would seem to agree with the meaning placed on the harvest in Luke 10:2.

The Seduction of Rebellion

How similar the call of the serpent to Eve,

Genesis 3:1-5 “Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, ‘Indeed, has God said, “You shall not eat from any tree of the garden”?’ The woman said to the serpent, ‘From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, “You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.”’ The serpent said to the woman, ‘You surely will not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’”

to the call of the world to us, and especially to our children,

“Do you listen to everything your parents say? They just don’t want you to have fun.”
“Your kids are going to hear and learn about these things anyways.”

or as a popular song from some years back put it,

“Only the good die young.”

Proverbs chapter 7 are the words of a parent who loves you,

Proverbs 7:1-27 “My son, keep my words and treasure my commandments within you. Keep my commandments and live, and my teaching as the apple of your eye. Bind them on your fingers; write them on the tablet of your heart. Say to wisdom, ‘You are my sister,’ and call understanding your intimate friend; that they may keep you from an adulteress, from the foreigner who flatters with her words.

”For at the window of my house I looked out through my lattice, and I saw among the naive, and discerned among the youths a young man lacking sense, passing through the street near her corner; and he takes the way to her house, in the twilight, in the evening, in the middle of the night and in the darkness. And behold, a woman comes to meet him, dressed as a harlot and cunning of heart. She is boisterous and rebellious, her feet do not remain at home; she is now in the streets, now in the squares, and lurks by every corner. So she seizes him and kisses him and with a brazen face she says to him: ‘I was due to offer peace offerings; today I have paid my vows. Therefore I have come out to meet you, to seek your presence earnestly, and I have found you. I have spread my couch with coverings, with colored linens of Egypt. I have sprinkled my bed with myrrh, aloes and cinnamon. Come, let us drink our fill of love until morning; let us delight ourselves with caresses. For my husband is not at home, he has gone on a long journey; he has taken a bag of money with him, at the full moon he will come home.’ With her many persuasions she entices him; with her flattering lips she seduces him. Suddenly he follows her as an ox goes to the slaughter, or as one in fetters to the discipline of a fool, until an arrow pierces through his liver; as a bird hastens to the snare, so he does not know that it will cost him his life.

“Now therefore, my sons, listen to me, and pay attention to the words of my mouth. Do not let your heart turn aside to her ways, do not stray into her paths. For many are the victims she has cast down, and numerous are all her slain. Her house is the way to Sheol, descending to the chambers of death.”

The seduction to sin is fun, alluring and enticing, until the moment you realize it has cost you your soul.

Three Witnesses Against Evolution

“By the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall be established.”

There are three witnesses that testify against evolution:

1. Abiogenesis

2. The second law of thermodynamics.

3. The rules of three’s

Any one of these are fatal to the theory, but the three of them together show how weak the theory truly is.

Abiogenesis

What is abiogenesis?  It is the theory that fully formed living organisms can arise from non-living matter.  It has been fully refuted, with the Encyclopaedia Britannica stating positively, “It may now be stated definitely that all known living organisms arise only from pre-existing living organisms.”  This proves true the declaration of Scripture, and what we see with our eyes, that every living thing exists by reproduction, whether by the seed which its parent produces (i.e., apples, oranges, animals, or man) or by mitosis (cell division), in the case of microscopic animals.  Life does not come into existence from non-life.

Why is evolution dependent upon abiogenesis?  The theory of evolution only deals with pre-existing matter; that is, one thing that was living evolved into another thing.  It does not address how the original living thing came into existence.  For it to be an explanation of the origin of life, it must address and include abiogenesis, which it does not, and which it cannot, for it was disproved in 1668 by Francesco Redi.

The prevailing notion was that maggots spontaneously generated in rotted meat when it was exposed to air.  Redi proved this wasn’t true by placing screens over the meat, which prevented the flies from laying their eggs.

With the invention of the microscope, bacteria were discovered 15 years later.  They discovered that no matter how they screened off organic matter, putrefaction set in, and bacteria appeared.  This gave them hope that abiogenesis took place on the bacterial level, until Pasteur disproved this by first sterilizing the organic matter, and then protecting it from contamination; no microbes grew.  This disproved it on the microscopic level.

But they still couch their bets; For though Britannica stated the above quote, they immediately follow it up with, “It must be noted, however, that this statement relates only to known existing organisms.  It may be that in the progress of science it may yet become possible to construct living protoplasm from non-living material.  The refutation of abiogenesis has no further bearing on this possibility than to make it probable that if protoplasm be ultimately formed in the laboratory, it will be by a series of stages, the earlier steps being the formation of some substance, or substances, now unknown, which are not protoplasm.”

Though their theory has been disproved time and again, yet their unbelief in God drives them to believe it still must happen.

The second law of thermodynamics

This deals with entropy, the level of disorder in a system.  Entropy in an isolated system can never decrease; meaning, disorder in an isolated system cannot become more ordered.  When maximum entropy has been reached, it has reached a state of equilibrium.

To explain: On a molecular level, the faster molecules are moving, the higher the temperature of the substance.  If the substance is introduced to an enviroment which is cooler, the molecules will crash into the slower moving molecules of the cool environment until a state is reached where they are both moving at the same speed (equilibrium).  So, if you place an ice cube on a hot sidewalk, the faster moving molecules of the sidewalk will crash into the slower moving molecules of the ice, causing them to speed up until they are moving fast enough that the solid ice changes to the liquid state of water, and if the sidewalk is hot enough it may cause the water to further pass to steam.

The law further shows that, in the absence of work, heat (energy) cannot be transferred from an area of lower temperature to an area of higher temperature, meaning, the higher temperature will become cooler, and the lower temperature will become higher, until they reach the same temperature.  This can only be overcome by introducing work, that is, more energy, in this case refrigeration.  Refrigeration works by extracting heat from an object (the interior of the refrigerator), and moving it to an area of higher temperature, the environment around it.

What does this mean for evolution?  Absent an introduction of work, everything will always be reduced to an equilibrium; that is everything breaks down, it does not build up, order will return to maximum disorder, the body of man returns to the dust from which it came.  We see it around us; everything exposed to the environment, unless protected from it, breaks down.  This means, that unless outside work was performed, disorder could never have become ordered in the first place.  Meaning, we could not exist, unless we were made.

The rule of three’s

There is a loose rule of three’s, being:

1. We cannot live more than 3 weeks without food

2. We cannot live more than 3 days without water

3. We cannot live more than 3 minutes without air

This calls for reasoning; how can we have existed, alive, for the millenia they say took for us to become as we are, if at maximum we cannot live for more than a few minutes without air?  These bodies require a constant introduction of air to live; how can it have existed for the time they say it would have taken, by evolution, to develop the intake mechanism (the nose and mouth), and the exchange mechanism (the lungs, which pass the air to the blood, which passes it to the cells)?  It is an impossibility.

“For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse,” Romans 1:20.

Evolution's Missing Foundation

Before there can be evolution, there must be abiogenesis.  It is the foundation on which evolution must rest; without it, evolution cannot even be considered.

What is abiogenesis?  It is the theory that fully formed living organisms can arise from non-living matter.  It has been fully refuted, with the Encyclopaedia Britannica stating positively, “It may now be stated definitely that all known living organisms arise only from pre-existing living organisms.”  This proves true the declaration of Scripture, and what we see with our eyes, that every living thing exists by reproduction, either by the seed which its parent produces, whether apples, oranges, animals, or man, or by mitosis (cell division), in the case of microscopic animals.  Life does not come into existence from non-life.

Why is evolution dependent upon abiogenesis?  The theory of evolution only deals with pre-existing matter; that is, one thing that was living evolved into another thing. It does not address how the original living thing came into existence.  For it to be an explanation of the origin of life, it must address and include abiogenesis, which it does not, and which it cannot, for it was disproved in 1668.

Evolution is a house without a foundation, it is a false theory for the explanation of life, because life can only come from life. God has made it this way.

Christian Idolatry

The Israelite under the Law of Moses had physical sacrifices he was to make as part of his worship of God.  One of the greatest sins an Israelite could do was to fall into idolatry, the worshipping of a foreign god, an idol; this is a sin which the nation fell into time and time again. Why was it so bad?  God declares,

“You shall not follow other gods, any of the gods of the peoples who surround you, for the LORD your God in the midst of you is a jealous God; otherwise the anger of the LORD your God will be kindled against you, and He will wipe you off the face of the earth,” Deuteronomy 6:14-15.

God is a jealous God; His jealousy comes in when we give to another what is due to Him.  The Israelite had a relationship with Him, but time and again, they gave their affections to idols, and not to Him, the One to whom it was due.

The Christian has sacrifices which he is required to make (see Sacrifices of the Christian Life).  Can he also fall into idolatry?  Obviously, if the Christian were to begin to worship an idol, he would be idolatrous.  But is there another idolatry the Christian needs to be on guard against?

“For this you know, that no…covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God,” Ephesians 5:5, and again,

“Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth…and covetousness, which is idolatry,” Colossians 3:5

The Scriptures identifies covetousness (or, greed) as idolatry.  When a Christian has his mind set on earthly things, when his desire for earthly things has exceeded his desire for Christ, he has become an idolator.  At that point, he has turned his affections from Christ, and turned them towards the things of this world.  And as Ephesians plainly states, if we fall into this, we have no inheritance with Christ.

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also,” Matthew 6:19-21.

The Wisdom of the Creation, Pt. 2

We have all probably heard someone say, “There’s no proof of God’s existence.”  But is there proof?  Can science show the existence of God?

Psalm 19:1-4 reads,
“The heavens declare the glory of God;
And the firmament shows His handiwork.
Day unto day utters speech,
And night unto night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech nor language
Where their voice is not heard.
Their line has gone out through all the earth,
And their words to the end of the world,” 

and again, Psalm 14:1,
“The fool has said in his heart,
‘There is no God.’”

The Scripture boldly declares that the man who does not believe there is a God is a fool.  For a person who doesn’t believe something to be considered a fool, the evidence for that thing must be of such a strength that a right-thinking person can come to no other conclusion, than that the thing is true; so strong is the evidence, then, that God has given us as to His existence, that God, whose judgment is sound, declares the unbeliever a fool.

What then is the evidence? 

Science proves the existence of God
The second law of thermodynamics describes how everything in the universe resorts to chaos; that is, all order is constantly returning to disorder.  Everything in this existence which has order is slowly but surely deteriorating; it is in a continual state of returning to disorder.  A picture left in the sun fades away.  Metal left outside turns to rust.  Sometimes the process is slow, other times it is fast, but this is a law which cannot be gotten around.

What does this mean?  Only this: there cannot be order, without an intelligence putting that which is disordered into order.  This is because anything left alone will naturally deteriorate; it will never assume order.  Left to its own, iron ore will never assemble itself into an object; a tool for example.  But leave that tool alone, and it will eventually return to the elements.  This is a process that only works in one direction; order returns to disorder.

How does this prove the existence of God?  The created world has order.  For an example close to all of us, our bodies have order.  Look at your hand; it clearly has order.  This cannot be denied.  But order cannot exist, without an intelligence creating that order.  This also cannot be denied.  Thus it is written,

“The heavens declare the glory of God;
And the firmament shows His handiwork…
There is no speech nor language
Where their voice is not heard,”

and He boldly declares,
“The fool has said in his heart,
‘There is no God.’”

How is it, looking at a robotic hand, no one doubts that an intelligence made it, but looking at our own hand, we are in denial?