“The Heart Is the Matter”

Heavenly Father, we pray that you help us to think and exercise our minds. May the Spirit of the living God give us understanding, that we may not expose, expel or despise your word, but that we will receive it as the word of God. Your word is spirit and your word is life. Your word is hope. Your word is joy. Your word is the word of the kingdom of God, and that kingdom is one of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

Heavenly Father, we are very aware that where the gospel is preached, Satan and his demons are ready to oppose that word and take it away from the hearts of people who are careless and thoughtless. O God, we pray that you have mercy upon us this morning, that we will treasure your word, focus on your word, understand your word and appreciate your word, that your word may set us free from all bondage. May we experience the joy of salvation! For we pray this in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord and King. Amen.

If we cry out to God, asking, “God, what is the matter?” he would answer us, “The heart is the matter.” In this country most people who die physically die because of their hearts, and all people who die spiritually die because of their hearts. So the heart is the matter. In this portion of Scripture human hearts are likened to soil, so you may want to use another title: “Soil Analysis.” If you want to buy some land for agriculture, you should analyze the soil ahead of time, because it may not grow what you want. If you want to buy land for a building, you should do some soil analysis to make sure that the soil is proper to build on. In Matthew 13 we are given seven parables. Why? In Matthew 12 the authorities were given clear evidences of the fact that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, the Son of God. Yet they rejected that evidence and claimed that he was a demon-possessed person who contributed to the kingdom of Satan. So from this point on you see a change in the ministry of Jesus Christ, particularly to the crowds. He now begins to teach mostly in parables.

What Is a Parable?

A parable is a story taken from real life situations, from which a spiritual truth is drawn. It is an earthly story with a heavenly meaning. People have written many books on parables and yet it is not very easy to interpret parables. We can say at least this much, that, generally, a parable has one chief point of comparison. That doesn’t mean this is true always, and even in this parable it may not be true.

Parables differ from fables in that a fable is not dealing with real life. For instance, inAesop’s Fables you hear animals talk. But a moral is also drawn from a fable. An allegory is also drawn from real-life situations, but unlike a parable, in an allegory each detail has meaning. For example, C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia are essentially allegories, in which each detail has meaning.

This parable deals with agriculture. In other words, it is drawn from a real-life situation, and the chief point of comparison is the response of the soils to the seed sown. This parable teaches us that the effect of the word of God, of the proclamation of the gospel of the kingdom of God, depends upon the state of the soil, or the heart, into which it falls.

So now Jesus speaks in parables to the crowd but he explains the parables to his disciples in private. He speaks in parables to the crowd, not only to reveal the nature of the kingdom of God, but also to conceal and veil the meaning of the kingdom of God to those who are not ordained to eternal salvation. Parables deal with the kingdom of God in its present and future aspects. In Jesus Christ the kingdom of God, the rule of God, has come, and in Matthew 11:12 we read that it is forcefully advancing. The kingdom of God, the rule of God, is forcefully advancing in the person and work of Jesus Christ, and forceful men – men and women of faith and repentance, those who repent and believe – are laying hold of it. Others, like the religious and political leaders, reject the rule of this kingdom. They mock and blaspheme the King. So when Jesus teaches in parables, in actuality he conceals the nature of the kingdom to those who are unbelieving, and reveals it to those who believe. God hides this gospel, this good news of salvation, from the wise and learned, and reveals it to little children.

So parables do this job of concealing and revealing. This is clearly stated in Matthew 13:10-17. The heart of the gospel is that Jesus is the Christ, the Savior of the world; that Jesus is the King, the Son of David; and that Jesus the King saves his people from their sins, and brings them into the kingdom of God, the kingdom of righteousness, peace, joy and life. One damns himself by mocking Jesus Christ and rejecting him, but all those who trust in him will be saved.

The First Soil

What is the effect of the word of the kingdom upon various hearts? I said the heart is the matter. And I call the first type of people to whom the gospel comes the paved hearts, the hard hearts. These are people who come to church regularly and hear the gospel preached. Now, there is no problem with the seed – let’s be very clear about this. There is no problem with the preacher. The seed is the gospel and the preachers are God’s servants. (I am speaking about churches that preach the true gospel. There are many churches today that preach a false gospel, and many preachers who are, in reality, agents of Satan, as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 11 – messengers of Satan, masquerading as preachers of the gospel, as angels of light. No, I am speaking about churches that preach the gospel faithfully week after week.)

But people of the first soil are people of hardened hearts. Their hearts are hardened by sin. They hear the truth but they suppress it. They do not like it or welcome it. They do not want to understand it. They hear it but they do not understand the meaning of it. What is that meaning? That Jesus Christ is the King, and that in him the kingdom of God is advancing in power to save those who would trust in him, and that Jesus Christ conquers Satan and saves all who will welcome him, surrender to him and receive him.

I heard of a person who said that she could not understand a thing her pastor was preaching. I know her pastor. He is a faithful preacher, and others understand him very well. Yet this woman understood essentially nothing, and she was trying to blame the preacher. But, no! The heart is the matter. Some did not even understand Jesus Christ, although Jesus was the greatest communicator the world has ever known. PGM He was the greatest exegete of the Father. He is the Word. He is communication. He was in the bosom of the Father, and he was sent to this world to exegete, to explain, to declare and proclaim who the Father is and that God the Father loves the world and has given his Son, that those who believe in him may not perish but be saved.

So Jesus used parables, and some did not understand him, but the problem was not with Jesus Christ. The problem was not with his word. The heart is the matter. The problem is the human heart: that hard, sin-loving, truth-suppressing heart. Those with such hearts despise and expose the word. They have no interest in the kingdom of God. They have no interest in the world to come. They are completely satisfied by the kingdom of Satan, the kingdom of this age. They have no need. They are spiritually dead and insensitive. They hate Christ the King and his attributes of sovereignty, holiness, purity, omnipotence and omniscience. They hate him! Preaching to them seems a wasted effort .

Yet the gospel must be preached to all! To the paved heart people preaching only increases their guilt. To them the gospel becomes the smell of death. Think of the religious leaders of Jesus’ day who heard the gospel. Think of Herod Antipas. Think of Pilate. Think of Felix, who even trembled when the gospel was proclaimed to him by St. Paul. Think of Festus. Think of Agrippa. None of these received the gospel. They did not bow down to King Jesus. They were hard. They were like Pharaoh, who hardened his heart even though irrefutable miracles were performed by Moses through the power of the Holy Spirit. Pharaoh hardened his heart, and we read in the Scripture, “Therefore God hardened his heart” that he would not be saved.

God’s word always accomplishes the purpose for which it is sent. It is not that God sits in heaven and sends out his word through messengers, hoping that you will receive it. If you don’t receive, is God frustrated, unhappy, miserable, wringing his hands and pacing the floors? Oh, no. The word of God always accomplishes the purpose for which it is sent, and it is sent for two purposes: to damn you or to save you. It’s that simple. To some it is the smell of death, and to others it is the fragrance that gives life. Never, never think that the word of God meets with failure.

God’s word judges those who harden their hearts. Such people are in the churches. They are sleepy and yawning. They are easily distracted. They laugh at the little stories, but they don’t understand the heart of the message. They have to get up and go out every few minutes. They are not focused and don’t know what is going on. The devil prevents them from focusing on the word. He immediately comes and removes the word, lest they believe and be saved. The devil understands correct theology. He is evangelical. He knows the gospel that says, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.” But the devil doesn’t want anyone to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved. So as soon as the word is spoken, the devil is there to remove that word from those who refuse to understand it, who expose it, who despise it, who will not focus upon it and who will not exercise their minds to understand it. The devil and his demons are here, as well as the Holy Spirit. The devil will do his work upon those who will not listen. The Spirit of the living God will do his work upon those who will listen.

So, the devil understands correct theology. He knows that if a sinner believes the word of the kingdom, he will be saved. But the devil does not want you to be saved. He comes to steal, kill and destroy. Oh, sinner, will you not understand? Oh, friend, will you not believe the gospel and be saved? Will you not stop hardening your heart and be saved today? How long will you have this opportunity? Ask yourself! Man is vapor. Man is like the flower of the grass.

The Second Soil

The second soil people are the stony heart people. These also come to church and hear the gospel week after week. They are what someone called “Alka-Seltzer-type people.” They are people of fizz. They are warm and emotional. They respond easily to everything, but they are shallow. They are superficial and rootless. They join the church without any deliberation and reflection, because they hate thinking. They check their minds outside, and they come in just to be happy.

Evangelical churches are full of stony-heart people. They don’t understand the cross, and they don’t want to understand it. They are like people who, seeing each other, instantly fall in love. They will get married the same day, but at the sight of the first problem, they get out. These people confess Christ, but when they lose their jobs or when the doctor says they have cancer, or whatever else it is, at the sight of the first problem, they get out. They are infants. They never mature. They are fizzy.

Such people don’t understand repentance or the nature of sin. They want forgiveness. They like eternal life, but they don’t like obedience to Jesus Christ. They don’t know what to make of what Jesus meant when he said, “You have to hate your father, your mother, your brother, your sister, your own children and your own life. You have to hate everything, and you have to deny yourself, take up the cross daily and follow me, that you will be killed by the world that killed Jesus Christ.” They don’t understand that. They want an easy Christianity. They want to fizz all their lives. They say, “If the gospel will make me happy, I’ll be a Christian. The question is, what can make me fizz and be happy? Don’t teach me doctrines! I don’t like doctrines. Please entertain me.” Oh, such people don’t like trials, afflictions, temptations, pressures and persecutions. They say, “Give me a gospel of cheap grace, that will not make any demands upon my life. Give me a gospel of health and wealth and power and position. Give me a gospel of happiness. Give me a gospel that assures me of a good life, not in the world to come, but here and now.” These are impulsive, emotional, shallow, thoughtless Christians who are superficially happy. They will join quickly and resign also very quickly. I have seen quite a number of them in my life.

But let me tell you, these people are not born again. Just like the paved-heart people, stony-heart people are not born again. They may seem to be for a while, but they are not born again. They have not repented. They do not understand the gospel. They soon fall away.

Are you one of these? If you are, I say to you this morning, “Repent! Ask God to take away your stony heart, and the Bible promises he will give you a heart of flesh, that you may trust in Christ the Savior, and be brought into this advancing, all-conquering kingdom of God.”

The Third Soil

Then there is the thorny heart. Now this heart is preoccupied, meaning it is occupied prior to hearing the gospel. This soil looks clean on the surface, but it is infested ground. There is a secret below the surface, a hidden agenda, seeds of thorns underneath. These people come to church regularly, hear the gospel and receive it. The seed of the word sprouts in them and grows for a while, but the seeds of thorns also grow. They grow with great vigor and flourish, and we are told the thorns finally choke and destroy the word of the gospel, just as the demons choked the two thousand pigs and killed them.

These are people whose hearts are divided. These are people who try to do the impossible. Jesus said you cannot serve two masters, both God and mammon, at the same time. Jesus said you will end up loving and serving one and despising and hating the other.

These are people who want to be like the rich man in this world and like the beggar in the world to come. They want to serve Satan and God at the same time. They want to serve money and God at the same time. These are people who are always trying to achieve pleasure. In their minds pleasure is the consummate goal of their life. They even worry: “How can I get maximum pleasure?” And they soon discover that you can get maximum pleasure by maximum money. This is the deceitfulness of riches. Their riches deceive them.

They subscribe to this materialistic philosophy because if one has money, then one can have pleasure. Oh, this is not just a problem of the rich. It is also a problem of the poor person who believes in his heart that pleasure comes through money. And so he worries and worries and worries and works hard all his life. The poor wants to get rich and the rich wants to get richer and the richer wants to be the richest.

I was reading the Wall Street Journal , which reported this marriage of Disney and Capital City/ABC. And by this single deal, a man named Warren Buffett made $2.25 billion. He must be the happiest person in the world! We say, “If only I had more money, all my problems would be solved,” and so we struggle and work hard. These are the worries of this life and lust for other things.

In the New Testament we see a man, Demas, an associate of St. Paul, who preached the gospel of the kingdom of God. He told people that they should repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ that they may be saved. But when St. Paul was arrested and about to be executed, Demas looked at Paul, and we read this in 2 Timothy 4: “Demas has abandoned me, having loved this present world. . .” Here was a man who had preached about the world to come, but he really loved the present world. He realized what mattered for him was really money, that money would bring him pleasure, so he went to Thessalonica to do business. He abandoned St. Paul and the gospel that he preached. May God deliver you from delusions of materialism. May God reveal to you the reality of this world and the world to come. May God reveal to you that this world is passing away and the elements will melt with fervent heat. God is about to create a new heaven and a new earth, upon which will dwell righteousness. May God reveal to you that true salvation is in the kingdom of God. It is the sphere of eternal life and you enter it through trust in Jesus Christ alone. May God reveal to you that this frantic, frenetic activity to make money, to get maximum pleasure, this spirit of materialism, does not bring pleasure but pain.

Notice, the Holy Spirit uses the word “thorns.” Oh, this materialism is like a knife, like a boa constrictor. If you play with it, this knife will cut you, this boa constrictor will constrict you, and what will happen to you will be that which happened to Judas, who was greedy. Right after selling Jesus Christ for money, he was filled with guilt and became insane. He threw his money away, and he hanged himself. The Bible says his intestines came out. I don’t know whether he got much pleasure from it.

Understand, then, that what you think, that this will give you pleasure, is not true. It’s a delusion, an illusion, a deception. It is a thorn. If a child comes to you and says, “I have a thorn in my finger,” what do you do? Would you say, “Praise God! You have a thorn. How wonderful!” Oh, no. You want to take it out. “Take it out!” the Spirit of the living God is speaking to you. If you are committing yourself to serve mammon and the spirit of materialism, thinking this will bring you pleasure, I say, “Get out of this stupidity!” This is delusion. This is unreality.

Jesus Christ said it is impossible for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. This is true, not only for the man with money, but for every person who thinks that money will solve his problem. But that which is impossible for man is possible with God, so I exhort you to love God with all your heart. A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. He is a dangerous man, because he is about to fall. Avoid him who trusts in money. Do not go near him, because he will fall and harm you.

The Fourth Soil

The fourth soil is the good heart. Luke says it is a beautiful and good heart. But my problem is that all hearts are evil. We are told “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23) We are told, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9) And in Mark 7, beginning with verse 20, Jesus Christ says the heart is the matter. He says this: “For from within, out of men’s hearts come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.” The heart is the matter.

If this is so, if all hearts are wicked and evil, how can anyone have a good heart to repent and believe on the gospel? How can anyone hear, accept, understand, persevere and bring forth fruit? It is impossible unless, of course, God does something to these hearts before you begin to understand, repent and believe.

We read this amazing statement in Matthew 11:26: “‘ Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.'” This was the will of God! What was it? Look at verse 27: “‘All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.'” The sovereignty of God. Nobody tells him what to do or not to do. He rules. He reigns. He chooses. He elects. And it is the will of God the Father that his Son should reveal to those he chooses. The nature of the new covenant is that God will take away your stony heart and give you a heart of flesh. The Spirit of God will come upon you and cause you to be born again, that you may have a heart of flesh that is pliable and responsive to the gospel.

Oh, yes, there is election. There is the sovereignty of God, and the prior work of regeneration, in which a new heart is given in place of this wicked, stupid, unresponsive, paved, thorny, stony heart. It is all taken out, and now, in Matthew 13:11, we read, “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven have been given to you,” written in the perfect passive tense. It is given to you. It’s yours! It’s been given to you some time ago, and it is still yours, and it will be yours always unto the end of the age.

But then it says “‘but not to them.'” Not to them! This is divine good pleasure. To some it is given. In other words, the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God is a gift. This knowledge that Jesus is the King, the Son of God, the Messiah, the Savior, the One who conquers Satan and his kingdom and delivers the hostages and sets them free, is given to some and not to others. This is divine good pleasure. He shows mercy to whomever he wants to show mercy. That’s how our wicked hearts are changed into good hearts.

Oh, read this wonderful thing in verse 16: “‘But blessed are your eyes because they see. . .” Oh, the unbelievers and the authorities and the politicians also saw Jesus with their eyes. They heard him with their ears. But this is a different seeing. This is seeing in Jesus that he is the Son of God, the Messiah, the King of David, the Savior of the world. This is a spiritual insight is granted to some and not to the other. This is divine discrimination. If you belong to that category, this is a benediction from heaven upon you. “‘Blessed are your eyes because they see and your ears because they hear.'” You are seeing Jesus Christ, the Savior, the Son of God, the eternal God, God incarnate, the one who conquers demons and Satan and defeats them thoroughly, the one who has the keys of hell and death, the one to whom is given all authority in heaven and on earth. But others see and call him a blasphemer, a demon-possessed person, a Samaritan.

“‘For I tell you the truth, many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see. . .'” The saints as well as the prophets of the Old Testament longed to see the incarnate Son of God. Oh, they were given some spiritual understanding. They saw him by faith but they never saw him as the incarnate Son of God. But here Jesus Christ says, “You are a blessed people. Abraham wanted to see. Isaiah wanted to see. Jeremiah wanted to see. The righteous men of the Old Testament all wanted to see and hear, but you are seeing him and hearing his words. You are blessed.”

Oh, yes, good-heart people understand that God’s kingdom is advancing in the coming of Jesus Christ, and those who believe in him enter it and enjoy rest forever. But the marvel and wonder of this parable is what? In spite of all obstacles, opposition and resistance to Jesus Christ and his message, in spite of Satan, sin , unbelief and a hostile world, the kingdom of God is advancing. It is not retreating, but advancing and conquering, putting down every rebellion and arrogance. Those who are ordained to salvation are being saved and responding to the gospel. They are bringing forth fruit for the glory of God. No Satan, no sin can stop the powerful advance of God’s kingdom in Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit of God. Oh, the irresistible grace and the omnipotence of the kingdom of God!

In Acts 8 we see a eunuch reading Isaiah 53. Philip asked, “Eunuch, do you understand anything?” And he said, “I don’t understand a thing.” Philip preached and the Holy Spirit opened this man’s eyes. That eunuch instantly became a Christian and was ushered into the kingdom of God. When St. Paul went to Europe, to Philippi, he began preaching to a group of women and Lydia, a seller of purple cloth, was there. But how can a person with a bad heart respond to the gospel unless God gives a good heart? The Lord did open her heart, and gave her the ability to respond to the gospel, and she was saved. When Paul was in the jail in Philippi, singing and praising in the middle of the night, there was an earthquake and the door was opened. The prisoners’ chains were broken, and the jailer was about to kill himself, when Paul said, “Don’t do it! We all are here!”This jailer cried out, “What must I do to be saved?” And Paul said, “Repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, and your household,” and he was saved, instantly.

If you have never trusted in Jesus Christ, I welcome you to do so today. And if you are person who trusted in Christ but are living a backslidden life, I say to you, “Be single-hearted. Love the Lord with all your heart, mind, soul and strength.” If you want to receive a blessing from the King of kings and Lord of lords, I invite you to cry out to this King. The Bible says, “Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Oh, King Jesus, conquer all stony hearts! Break down all resistance to your rule. Give us hearts of flesh. Save us, we pray. Remove our hardness. Remove our rebellion. Remove our preoccupation with this world. Remove our blindness. Spirit of the living God, fall upon us. Give us new life, that we may repent and believe on King Jesus and be saved forever. Amen.