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When God speaks to us, it is so that our lives may change. There is a place in Scripture where God was speaking through His servant Apostle Paul to us. And I want us to read it in Romans 10 from verse 14. It says; How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? I want us to note these words.
Listen to Podcast: The Kingdom Experience Pt. 2: The Parable of the Sower
So, the question is; What is the crux of the matter? What is God looking for here? Is it possible to guess? God is actually looking for people who will call on Him. Because God knows that the circumstances of people will never remain the same if only, they can call on Him. The Bible says call on me and I will answer you, and I will show you great and mighty things that you have never seen before.
The Bible is saying here; How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? When we look at this point, we will realize that even though call on Him is important to God, believe in Him is not here. It is in the second one. When we started, I said what is the important thing? We realized that it was ‘call on Him’ But the now said ‘And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard’? Suddenly we now realized that believe in Him is now important to God.
And then the Bible says “How shall they hear without a preacher?”. Then again, we realize that apart from believing in Him, God wants people to hear. Then the Bible says “How shall they preach unless they are sent”? So, the first thing is to call on Him, again before they can call, they have to believe Him, and how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard. If they will ever believe, they must hear? So, hearing becomes so important. How shall they hear Him without a preacher? So, the preacher is important. And how shall they preach unless they are sent?
If we look at this thing that we have read, we will realize that there are stages and certain things are important for the next thing to happen. We started last week looking at the kingdom experience part 1, but in this piece, we are continuing in part 2 with looking at a particular parable in the book of Matthew. The parable of the Sower.
But before we go into the parable, we are building a background with this epistle of Apostle Paul. Where Apostle Paul made us to realize that there is a link between what people hear and the change that the people are looking for. That if the lives of people will change, something has to change with what they are hearing, something has to change with what they are believing. When you come to the point where you believe, it is not just that you have heard something, when you come to the stage that you believe, it means that that you have heard, you have come to agree with it.
You have come to understand it and that it is the crux of our discussion in this piece. I could stand and speak to a people for a long time and all they will do is to hear me, and in the long run nothing happens to us, it is based on this message. But if only we can agree with the things that we hear this night, with a chance that we come to a place that we now believe; and when we believe, things can happen in our lives. The Bible says blessed is she that believes, for there shall be a performance of the things that has been said to her by her Lord.
So, if she is not believing, we could say cursed is she or he who does not believe. Or we can say status quo or the same it is for him or her who does not believe. So, when we believe, our lives changes. And we cannot believe if we have never heard. So, we must start from hearing, and then we must come to the place of understanding what we have heard before we get the point that we believe. And then we can call on God in whom we have believed. You cannot call on God if you have not trusted Him. You can’t trust Him if you have not understood that He can be trusted.
Let us go to the book of Matthew 13, we have listened to this message on the Sower, over and over, but we want to see it from an angle in this piece without forgetting the angle that we have seen it in the past. We must have heard about it from an angle, that angle is great, but in addition to that we want to see it from another angle. The parable of the Sower; Matthew 13 and I will read from verse 1. It says “On the same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the sea. 2 And great multitudes were gathered together to Him, so that He got into a boat and sat; and the whole multitude stood on the shore.3 Then He spoke many things to them in parables, saying:
So, the Bible is saying as soon as the people stood before Him, He began to speak before them. So, what was happening to the people? Where they believing or they were calling, or they were hearing. Don’t forget that the goal is that they should call on Him. But they can’t call on God if they have not believed God. They can’t believe God if they have not understood or heard about God. And they can’t hear about God if no body spoke to them about God.
So, in this piece, I stand in the place of a preacher talking to us about God and what will happen is that as long as you hear me, you stand a chance to move to the point of believing if only you can understand. The moment you don’t understand what i Say, you can’t believe anything and so you can’t call on God. And if you cannot call on God, your situation may not change. I don’t want to say cannot; there could be a miracle, God could show up.
So, lets continue from verse 3. The Bible says “Behold, Jesus began talking to them. He began by saying; “Behold, a Sower went out to sow. 4 And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside; The question is; was that the intention of the Sower? Who wants to farm, leaves his house and starts spreading seeds on the road? The Bible says; way-side. Way-side is the side of the way. So, he was on his way to the farm and the side of the way either by the right or by the left, they are not the farm, they are places along the way.
So, no matter the amount of seed that he successfully plant in those places, they will never be His. He could spend His whole day on those way sides, whatever he was sown, he has sown it for another to reap. And that is why I said this message we are hearing from another angle. Because I will not emphasize on the things we have heard about this message. We will be talking about these matters. How it is possible for us also to start our lives with great intentions, we carry seeds that we want to sow, the seeds could be anything, it could be your talent, it could be the prophecies of God hanging on your head, you will be great, you will be the mother of nations, God will be birth great destinies through you; you bear those seeds.
But the Bible says he was on his way and he dropped some seeds. We can say he dropped some seeds by the way side. Even though he sowed those seeds, he was never determined from his house to sow them there. They were not his intention; they were not the places he wanted to labor. He ended up laboring there but that was not where he wanted to labor. He didn’t want to produce fruits; he didn’t want to be productive in those places but he ended up being productive there. He ended up spending his time, his money and resources there.
It is often said that in every labor there is profit. Maybe that is why the Bible began to tell us about the experience of that man even based on the way side experience. Remember we are looking at kingdom experience. He was going to the farm, but he was sowing seed by the way side. Because in every labor there is profit, the Bible told us what happened to him because of what he did. The Bible did not skip it. Later on, the Bible shows us what happened. Now, let us continue; It says because of that, “The birds came and devoured them.”
Are there no birds in the good soil for those that understand this Scripture? Why didn’t these birds show up when he sowed them in the good soil? This is where we must look at. It is often said that heaven is falling, but it will not meet everybody in the same place. It will meet certain people in the right places. When the Holy Spirit came down in the day of Pentecost like a mighty rushing wind, we have been told over and over, the Holy Spirit did not bring down the roofs of people, He did not bring down the roof of the place the people were, the Holy Spirit filled the people. So, they were there ready, waiting for the Holy Spirit. It came for the purpose.
I am sure that when the Holy Spirit was coming, there were people around in the neighborhood that the Holy Spirit skipped before He reached out to them. So, we could be in the same circumstance in the same generation, but we will not be doing the same things in the same generation. Some of us will be busy with this, some of us will be busy with that. Some of us will be laboring in other people’s farms, others will be laboring in our own farms. Some of us will be in our own farms not laboring, some of us will be in other people’s farms and we will be laboring.
Verse 5 says; “Some fell on stony places”. Do we think that was his intention? Initially the Bible says “and he sowed” that was the language we heard. The Bible says he sowed some seeds on the way side. But when we got to the second one, the Bible didn’t say he sowed them. The reality is getting clearer. The Bible says some fell. Because, his intention is not the stony places. You can’t leave your house knowing that you are going to a farm and find rock and then you put your seed on the rock and then you say you have sowed it.
We have farmers in this place; you wouldn’t do that. The Bible did not skip the consequence, the experience that happened afterwards. Whether he did it mistakenly or he did it foolishly, the Bible showed us the experience. And then the Bible says “Some fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth; and they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth. 6 But when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered away.”
It was a wasted effort. Even though he could have spent 2 hours in those stony places, he got nothing. Last week we were looking at Peter, when Peter said master; we have toiled all night, but we have caught nothing. The Sower sowed we don’t know how long, since he sowed in the wrong place, the Bible says he caught nothing. Why? Everything withered away. We can call that effort in futility. I don’t think anybody is here that wants to produce like that.
You want to work very hard and in the long run everything you have done is nothing. Let’s continue; verse 7. Matthew 13 verse 7. It says; “And some fell among thorns, ‘look at it; it says some fell’ he didn’t put them there in his own wisdom. But the Bible says; they fell. We don’t know the quantity of the seeds that fell. We don’t know it was a lot of his seeds, time, money, emotions but they fell there. And the Bible says the thorns sprang up and choked them. Why? The thorns were not being wicked, they were being themselves. When you are in the wrong place, wrong people, people who are not supposed to be with you, who will necessarily be expressing themselves, they can choke you up. Why? You are not supposed to be with them.
And if we will ultimately get to the experience that God has ordained for each one of us, we must learn wisdom from these experiences that we are reading. Some seeds fell by the way side, we said that was not the primary plan. What happened to those seeds? The birds of the air came and devoured them. Some seeds fell inside stony places. The Bible says the sun scorched them. And they withered away. In those two experiences there has been nothing to show. We don’t know whether he spends the most important part of his day on those two or three places, but in the long run, nothing. And then some fell among the thorns; all he could be doing is Lord these ones that fell among the thorns please do a miracle, let the thorns not choke it.
But ordinarily thorns are meant to choke things inside them. If you are in a wrong environment, and you are like God please don’t allow the people around me choke me, what will happen? They will choke you. If you are in a stony place, and you are laboring there and that is not the purpose of God for your life you will be choked. Remember I said that was not his intention. What is the purpose of God for our lives? Why did God send us here? The intention is not those places, but even though he went to those places, he could not survive.
Let’s continue; it says “But others” initially the Bible kept saying some; when all the some are falling in wrong places, the remaining, the remnants and the others. We could use the word the left overs, the ones that are left, the remaining ones. They fell on good grounds. And the Bible says; “and yielded a crop” Did they yield miraculously? He didn’t necessarily need to do 7 days fasting and prayer. Why? There was an alignment between his intention and his practice. What he was expected to do and what he did aligned. What was he expected to do? He was expected to go to the farm, and sow the seeds he left the house with. But when he was along the way, because, the expectation was different from what he was doing, there was nothing good to show for it. He was expected to go to the farm, some fell in the thorns, nothing to show for it. But when he got to the farm and he was doing what he came to the farm to do, he has something to show for it.
Let’s thank God for his life that he had a remnant. What if everything that he left the house with he had wasted them on the stony places, among the thorns and on the way sides? Let’s thank God that he has enough. How many of us think we can be always fortunate to always have enough seeds? To the point that we can have the liberty to waste our seeds. How many of us can imagine that we will always have enough opportunities in life to the point that we can afford to waste the opportunities we have today. How many of us can think so much that we have enough strength, and we can waste our strength on activities that God has not ordained.
When the true blessing of God begins to show in a man’s life, it is at the point when the purpose of God for that man, woman connects with what the man or that woman is doing. If you are busy on what God didn’t create you for, you may just be like somebody who is sowing by the way side. Sometimes in Nigeria we often say I am just doing this business by the way. Again, we often say, this is just my side hustle. And then we give so much time, we give so much effort, in fact we even pray, Lord let this business, relationship, adventure succeed. But it could just be by the way side. Even though it may start to succeed, even though it is by the way side, birds of the air will always be a threat.
Your own has fallen among the stony places, even though God may hear your prayer, and God wants to bless the work of your hands, the work of your hands are in stony places. There is no earth there. So, when the sun comes out, they will wither. Don’t say God is not faithful. You may just have to change what you are doing or where you are. Why did you leave in the first place? What was the intention of God for your life? For what reason did God create you? For what reason did God give birth to you again in Christ Jesus? For what reason where you anointed, educated? Is what you are doing today by the way side? Is it among the thorns? Is it in stony places? If it is all that and you keep praying, you may just be wasting your prayer. What should you do? You must get yourself to the good soil.
Let’s go to verse 9 of Matthew 13. It says; “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” Hearing is important. Verse 10, “And the disciples came and said to Him, “Why do You speak to them in parables?”11 He answered and said to them, “Because it has been given to you to know the [a]mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.” So, what we just read is about the kingdom of heaven. It says but to them, it has not been given. Let’s jump to verse 18; where the explanation they ask Jesus for was explained. It says; “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.”
What is the purpose of hearing the message of the kingdom? It is to understand. Because when you understand, your life will change. But the Bible says; before they could understand; the wicked one comes and snatches away. The question we should ask is; are they the only ones that the wicked ones can reach?
Why is it easy for the devil to snatch revelation, truths, from some people and he is not able to snatch it from some? Even though we are all in the world and the devil is in the world, how comes the devil can come to certain people, and snatch what they have had making sure that they don’t understand. Yet some people will read, some will hear and they will understand. What was the cause? They were by the way side. The Bible said the birds will come and snatch it. Because they could not understand.
Assuming God has never called you to ministry, and you are in the church. And then they say brother Thompson please open your Bible to Genesis 1; and then they say brother Enoch Adeboye open your Bible to Genesis 1, two of you 1 hour go and study it and come and be a blessing to us. Who would you expect that the people will be blessed through? Brother Enoch, right? Why? It is believed that brother Enoch is on the good soil. There is an alignment with what God created him to do and what he is doing. But for the other brother, it will just be a by the way. Don’t forget it is assumed that God has not even called the brother. He is just a Christian.
And then you say brother, please come and be a blessing to us. You would not expect him and brother Enoch Adeboye to understand the Bible within the same time, the same way. If we take it a little bit further than that, the areas of our struggles, could it be they are the areas where we have not been ordained by God? Are we competing with birds in flying when God has created us to walk and run on the earth? Are we competing with the lions in the jungles? The point is this. No matter how good you think you are, if you are in a place where God has not ordained you to be, you are going to struggle there.
So, the crux of this message is; you must find the place that God has created you for. Because it is only there that you can flourish. What is that thing that God has created you to do? Until you do it, you will be trying, you will be failing. Look at verse 20; the Bible says; “But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; 21 yet he has no root in himself.” Let me explain this in another context. Two people are in a place and somebody shares an idea, do you know if you do this business, you can really make a lot of money?
And he decides to call the uncle to send 100 thousand naira I want to start business; I want to start a trade. But the Bible says he has no root in himself. Do you have the knowledge, the capacity to do the business? Many of us have borrowed money to do businesses that we have not been wired to do. It doesn’t connect with any ability that God has put inside of you. So, we struggle. In fact, we say; it is somebody in my village that is after me. My enemies don’t want me to succeed. If your enemies don’t want you to succeed, maybe they don’t want you to find the will of God for your life. that’s the biggest thing they could ever do.
When the Bible says God will bless the works of your hands, what kind of blessing can God bless the man who has sown on the stony places. Does he want God to bring the soil from other places to that place? Please which is easy for God to do? To lead a man to where there is a good soil or to bring good soil to where the man is. It is better for God to get you to the right place.
So, let us be sensitive per time. You cannot be praying that because you have missed the will of God in marriage. That person should divorce where he or she has gone to come and meet you where you are, when in reality you are the one that rejected him or her before he married or she married. So, the best thing is for God to lead you into his will. Not to unsettle other people in the will of God.
If you continue that, Scripture; verse 22, “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.” This is why we are reading this; I have already said I am going to read this message in another angle from where we have been hearing it. So, I didn’t really want us to go into the explanation. But still, the explanation is good for us. We saw the first one, the one by the way side, we saw what Jesus said; It says when anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the wicked one comes. So, we saw the wicked one coming.
The second one the stony places; it says this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy because he has no root in himself. So, the first experience is that we saw the wicked one. The second one is that we saw a man who has no root in Himself. All these experiences are they Gods fault? The wicked one is everywhere. That you have root in yourself and don’t have root in yourself is no mans fault, it is your decision, it is where you are. But yet those where issues that prevented the people from being blessed.
And the third one we saw that the cares of this world; are we saying the cares of this world is exclusive or peculiar to only that person? Who does not have right to care about this world? This world is open to everybody, isn’t it? We all see the goodies of this world, how comes the goodies of this world is not able to choke some people, but it is chocking others.
I heard a story of how somebody brought a very beautiful vehicle for pastor E.A. Adeboye and he decided to sell the vehicle and use the money to buy vehicles. And then he distributed it to the pastors who needed it. And not just that, there are many other things. If you put yourself in the shoes of pastor Adeboye if they carry you and put you in pastor Adeboye’s situation, will you be able to handle the cares of this world that can be available at his level? Will you be able to control your desires, your emotions, when you have everything, he has? Will you be able to manage it?
The presidents are calling you world-wide, you can just ask anyone for 10 million dollars and it will come, everything is just there. There will be tendencies for misbehavior. But is that tendencies for misbehavior not available now? It is, in fact it is more but how comes you are not falling for those tendencies now? It because there seems to be an alignment of some sort no matter how much between what he is doing where he is and where he ought to be. When you lift yourself and put yourself in that place, if God didn’t put you there, what will happen? There won’t be capacity.
Don’t forget the second person didn’t have root in himself. Pastor Adeboye did not grow the root over-night. Redemption camp was not born like that in fact the Bible school in redemption camp I happen to see the picture of the Bible school, the walls were like poultry in those days. The blocks were not plastered. That was the life. It didn’t start glorious. It is now glorious. What are the lessons they learnt along the way? That is them having root in themselves over time. So, where they are now, they are right for it. It is like a good seed and a good soil, they will produce. When God speaks word to them, they wont doubt it, they will not be hearing it like you and I. They will be hearing it with their maturity, with their experience with God.
When God speaks to them, they will understand and then their lives will be changing. If God should carry us now and put in his shoes, there is going to be a mis alignment. We will be hearing God at a frequency that we are not used to.
I was watching a skit, two people wanted to go and borrow money, when they realized that they just needed to drop a drop of blood each for 100 thousand. Two boys decided to borrow 10 million. But they now realized that when they drop the blood like that and they fail to pay back at the stipulated time, the gods will bring them from where ever they are; and they will come from the shrine and be kneeling down there with leaves in their mouth for the rest of their lives, so, eventually they said they are not borrowing again. But when they taught, they could get the money so cheaply, they wanted big money. The question is; when the big money comes to them and they lack capacity to multiply the money, where will they get the money to pay back? And when they got to the shrine, the person that invited them to borrow, they found him among the list of the defaulters.
It is not that just giving you things, when it comes, what will you do with it? Do you have the capacity to turn it? You could say God make me a general overseer, when you become general overseer, can you then manage the church? God make me married, when you get married, can you manage the dynamics of marriage? God give me children, and when the children comes and you are looking for privacy in your own house and you can’t find it, would you be able to handle it? we are looking for kingdom experience part 2.
The Bible says “He who receives the seed on the good ground, is he who hears the word and understands it. Who indeed bears fruits and produces.” So, what does that ‘indeed mean’? The other ones taught they were productive; but the Bible says; this one is the one that bears fruit indeed. Truly let us not fool ourselves thinking that we are progressing when we are not progressing. Let us tell ourselves the truth; am I in the right place? Am I doing the right thing? This season that is upon me, what is expected of me?
The dispensation that is hanging on my life, what am I expected to be preoccupied with. Who are the people that I must mix with, who are the people that I must not be with. What must I be doing? What must I stop doing? These are questions that we must answer. As we seek to experience the kingdom of heaven on earth. Many times, they wanted Jesus to do many things in His own generation, but the ensured that he was only doing the right thing. Apostle Paul was talking about certain things happening in the church, He said I cannot remember baptizing anybody except for the household of Cloe and other persons. Why? Because God did not send me to baptize but to preach. Even though baptism is ministry, preaching or teaching is ministry. The question is what where you sent to do. When you do the things that you were not sent is like a man who has seed and is either in the way side or in a stony lace or in the thorns. No matter the hope that you put in the things that you are doing, it is not going to produce fruits indeed.
