In this insightful message, Pastor Jack Hibbs explores the journey of a sower, likened to Jesus Christ, as he spreads the seeds of salvation. Learn about the challenges faced in ensuring these seeds find fertile ground, free from the distractions personified by the birds. Through engaging storytelling and biblical references, Pastor Jack encourages listeners to reflect on their own spiritual path and the readiness of their hearts to receive God’s word.
The Bible says there’s demonic forces that are snatching the Word right out of their presence. And yet, if their heart is open, if they want to seek after God, God will reveal Himself to them.
SPEAKER 01 :
This is Real Life. Welcome to Real Life Radio with Pastor Jack Hibbs. I’m David Jay, thanking you for joining us today as we listen, learn, and are challenged by God’s Word, the Bible. are you looking for answers in a rapidly changing world are you ready to engage in some meaningful conversation about the issues that face our nation and face our faith you can join pastor jack hibbs and his special guest charlie kirk for the next happening now that’s coming up wednesday march 26 that’s 7 p.m pacific now this dynamic event is held live at calvary chapel chino hills and it’s streamed online too by the way and that’s on the real life network pastor jack and charlie offer some timely discussion on current issues from a biblical perspective you’re going to be equipped encouraged and challenged to live out your faith in an ever-shifting culture call your friends bring your questions and get ready to discover what god’s word says about the issues that shape our world today if you’d like more details go to jackhibbs.com you don’t want to miss this opportunity to stay informed inspired and engaged join us for happening now and become a part of the conversation One more time, get all the info you need at jackhibbs.com. On today’s edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack continues now with his series called The Parables of Jesus and a message titled Parable of the Sower, Part 1. Now, whenever Jesus spoke to the masses, he often spoke in parables, and this is the first parable that Jesus taught, a biblical truth that requires a response in the minds and hearts of the people. With the parable of the sower, Jesus is setting the stage for teaching this way in the future. It’s a powerful revelation of truth given to us through Jesus in story form. He’s speaking to the masses of a time long ago, but his parables are just as relevant for us today. So Pastor Jack teaches us today in this parable, Jesus is the sower and we can embrace the seeds of salvation, or we can allow the seeds to fall by the wayside where our enemy Satan snatches them up. Now with his message called Parable of the Sower, Part 1, here’s pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs.
SPEAKER 02 :
What is a sower? A sower is one who casts seed. The sower went out to sow seed. And a sower does something interesting. When he sows, in a great degree, the seed is placed strategically, to a great degree. Not perfectly, because it’s being, the term is broadcast. You throw it, it’s called broadcasting. I gotta tell you, I used to be really good at that. Not for throwing seed, but when I was in high school, I worked for a construction company, and we built special decodings for decks. and hotels and businesses and stuff. And part of it was to do these elastomeric coatings, waterproof stuff. And then you throw either beautiful stone into this wet stuff or sand. And it was after about a summer of doing stuff, you could place sand. It was amazing how you could reach in and grab sand and you could place it. And how you threw it, you could lay it down in the, straight like that. You could throw it out and have it land incredibly. And it’s just an amazing thing. And so when I read this, I just go, oh my goodness. What’s the point? Is that it is very liberally spread. You can cover everything. And if you’re good at it, and those sowers, you can bet they were good at it, they could reach over there to an area where they don’t see any seed and they could just plop it by technique right down and the seed is laid down there. Know this, the sower is desiring to cover as much ground as possible. Why? Because he has absolute hope of getting a return on every bit of that seed that’s laid out there. If you’re a farmer, you wanna get as much seed down as possible. Okay, are you guys awake? Okay, good, I couldn’t tell. The farmer, the sower, does this with expectancy, with expectation, with hope. He is committed to this and works hard at it. The entire mission of Jesus Christ is one of hope, just like a farmer is. And then it says that, behold, he, the sower, went out to sow. And this is kind of by way of background, but watch how it applies. Everybody lived in villages. The farmers lived in villages. Everybody had a village communal life. When they went out to the fields, there were specific, by the way, it’s the same today. They had specific paths that they walked on. Historians tell us they were no wider than three feet. because the ground was precious. And they had these angles of a thoroughfare or the way they called it. It was a path from one location to the other through the fields. This is key. What was Christianity called in the book of Acts before it was called Christianity? The way to take you from one point to the other in the field. The field in what is called expositional constancy, which is a law of hermeneutics. When you teach the Bible, the field is always a picture of the world. There’s a path through the world that takes you from point A to point B. It is, what do you know about it? It is narrow, Jesus said, and you need to stay on it. Why? Because if you go off of it, you get into trouble. Every person in the audience understood what he was saying. And Jesus, in a moment, is going to reveal a truth that is going to bring all of them to a point of having to make a decision. Why? Because the mission is ultimately salvation. And so Jesus says, behold, a sower, we know about them, went out, that is, they went on the path to his field. He might have had to even traverse other farmers’ fields to get to his own. But he would have gone down this path. So he went out, and that’s significant. He stayed on this straight and narrow path to get to his… field. He’s got business to do. So what effect does this sowing have? And what is the purpose of it? We understand in the spiritual context, Jesus is going to really tell us that it’s all about preaching or delivering the word of God with this motive, with this hope that people would come to know Christ. Hosea chapter 10, verse 12, Old Testament. Hosea 10, 12 says, sow for yourselves righteousness. And they all knew this passage, by the way. Reap in mercy, break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the Lord till he comes and rains righteousness on you. In their minds, when Jesus said a sower went out to sow seed, they would have thought immediately, yeah, we see that all the time, farmer’s farm, but we’re Jewish. We live in the Holy Land, Bible land. We understand that our Old Testament prophets told us That sowing has spiritual connection and we need to be careful about our hearts. There’s a promise, Isaiah 52, verse seven says, how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news. Preaching the evangel, the gospel, who proclaims peace, who brings glad tidings of good things, who proclaims salvation. You see that? It’s awesome. And then there’s the fulfillment. Luke chapter four. When did Jesus begin his ministry of casting seed or being a sower? You can write down in your notes, Luke chapter four, verse 17. Jesus was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah when he was in the synagogue. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written. The Spirit of the Lord. Now Jesus is reading. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. This is amazing because everybody in the synagogue could have been like this. Oh, this is great. Today, Jesus, as it does every man on every Friday, the reading of the… Scriptures falls upon this guy this Sunday, or this Saturday, or Friday, okay? And it happened to have been Jesus that day. This is amazing. Every synagogue all around the world, on that day that Jesus read this, they all read all around the world, still to this day, the exact same scripture. It’s like them having their one-year Bible, daily Bible. The Jews have always done this, from Old Testament times to today. Isn’t that cool? That’s how they kept their culture together. Jesus opens up the book of Isaiah, turns to where he’s supposed to be that day, and reads, and guess what passage it is? The spirit of the Lord is upon me. Can you imagine? They’re like, oh, okay, well, this is normal. And then Jesus goes, the spirit of the Lord, and who knows what he did? The spirit of the Lord is upon me. Did he do that? I don’t know. I want to believe he did. Because watch what happens. Because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery the sight of the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. There’s a comma right there and Jesus stopped reading. He was supposed to keep reading. He stopped reading at a comma. Why? Because the next statement says, the execution or the delivery of God’s wrath and judgment upon earth. Well, that comma has held back in these last 2,000 years the wrath and judgment of God that’s coming. Isn’t that amazing? Jesus closes it. hands it back to the attendant and says, today is this scripture fulfilled in your hearing. And I would imagine, I get goosebumps thinking about it, just thinking about how that must have happened. But some people in the crowd said, oh my gosh, this guy’s gone nuts, we need to kill him. Because that’s how they think in that part of the world. I’m excited, we ought to kill somebody. Jesus, in saying that, proclaims, I’m the Messiah, I’ve come to save. I’m here to fulfill those scriptures. And his ministry was launched in that synagogue, the fulfillment of the sower going out to sow seed. The mission for you and I is all in the same vein. I don’t know about you guys, but after I read this next verse, I could go home. It’s so exciting. It was prophesied in the Old Testament. Jesus confirms the call upon his own life. Then he turns around to the Christians and says this. Matthew chapter 28, verse 18. And Jesus came and spoke to them saying, that is the disciples, not the multitude. All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I’ve commanded you. And lo or behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the world or the end of the age. That is awesome. The Old Testament spoke about God reaching us for the motive and mission of salvation. Jesus comes and fulfills the scriptures about what? Salvation. Then he turns to the believers, you and I, and says to us, go to the ends of the world and preach salvation.
SPEAKER 01 :
You’re listening to Real Life with Pastor Jack Hibbs. You know, to hear more episodes and maybe catch up in the series, just go to jackhibbs.com. That’s jackhibbs.com. And for now, let’s get back to our teaching. Once again, here’s Pastor Jack.
SPEAKER 02 :
Listen, church, we gotta really start believing in the Bible. The fastest growing religion on the planet says go into all the world and kill people. Murder them, cut their heads off, destroy them, conquer the world. Jesus says my kingdom’s not over this world. How cool is that? Jesus says I want you to go to the ends of the earth and preach life to people. Forgiveness, salvation, love, grace, and mercy. And those who hate you, Jesus said, love them. You want to upset somebody who hates you? Love them. When you can’t handle that, you just cut their head off. When you don’t know what to do with yourself because you’re out of control, just start cutting. What kind of insane thing is that? Anybody can do that. Jesus is no love. Love them. And so… We come to verse four, the parable of the sower, number two, is the placement of the seed, what it falls into is all important. So you wanna ask yourself, has the Lord reached me with salvation? Is he speaking to you about salvation? If he has and you’re a Christian now, that’s awesome. He’s gonna speak to us in a moment about this. But for all of us, believer and non-believer alike, listen to this number two issue about placement. To what is the seed falling into? Verse four, the first illustrative warning Jesus gives, verse four. And as he sowed some seed, some seed is implied. It doesn’t say it in Matthew’s gospel. The other gospels read it this way. Some seed, not all the seed, some of the seed fell by the wayside. Do you remember a moment ago what the way is? Then there’s the wayside. The dirt, watch this, the dirt that’s not the exact path, okay, the roadway, it’s not that, and it’s not the fields. It’s the ground, and you know what? When you go down the freeway, you have the freeway, and then you have the, what used to be beautiful in our state, now it’s where you throw tires and refrigerators and stuff. Right? When you go down a road, if you have a train going down a track, you’ve got the track and you’ve got the gravel and then you have the open fields. Are you with me? That area of what we would say is the gravel or the part that Caltrans needs to clean up, that spot, that would be the wayside. It’s not the roadway and it’s not the field. It’s in between. It’s like no man’s land. Transition area. Jesus says some seed fell there. And the birds came and devoured them. Bible students, circle the word birds. Whenever the Bible says birds, it is never good, ever. From Genesis to Revelation, it’s never good. When the Bible says, in what’s called that expositional constancy, where the interpretation is always true throughout the entire scripture, whenever it mentions birds, generically, you got bad news coming. You wanna know why? Why? Because when God speaks of something specifically, either in a blessing or in a judgment, for example, he says that I’m gonna summon and gather all the birds together and they’re gonna eat the flesh of dead men, captains, horses, and all those who have fallen in battle. But then Jesus turns and says, consider the sparrows. See how he speaks specifically? When he names a bird, in the context, there’s a reason. When he says birds, Generically, not good. Birds are never good generically. Now, I love birds. The reason why I love birds is because I know birds. I like them. I study them. I think they’re amazing. But listen, if you’re outside reading a newspaper at the park and a flock of birds flies over, you’re going to say, I have to leave now. But if a parrot flies up and lands on your shoulder, we had a parrot fly in the courtyard and land on the fence over here. That’s cool. Big difference. Do you get that? Expositional constancy. Birds are not good. You say, well, pastor, I don’t believe you. That’s okay. I expected that. Just hang on. Some seed, the placement, the word, as we’ll see in a moment, is the seed. The placement is in the heart of man. The seed is cast by the sower. The preacher delivers the word, no matter who that may be. The sower casts or broadcasts the seed generously, as I mentioned, consistently. some will fall even so liberally along the wayside. Matthew 13, 18, check it out. Matthew 13, 18, therefore Jesus said, hear the parable of the sower. When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, a Bible message, Somebody witnesses to them using truly, truly using scripture and does not understand it. You say, yeah, why does that happen? You might say, I witnessed to that guy. I was so good. I just did everything right. I just laid it down. I could even feel God using me in the moment. Look what Jesus said. You can do all that, but if somebody doesn’t understand it, it’s really because the wicked one has come and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is he who received the seed by the wayside. The ground cannot receive the seed enough. It’s laying on top of the ground. The seed is there on top of the ground. And the Bible tells us that birds come and snatch it up immediately, just waiting. Which, by the way, is the reason why you put tin foil on your fruit trees around here. Or a farmer might put a scarecrow out there. Why? Because the birds are waiting for the back to be turned or for the sower to keep going by. You have seen tractors pulling their blades through the fields. And what do you see behind the plow? Birds. It’s amazing. What are they doing? The ground turns things over or the tractor is spreading out seed and the birds try to steal it. Jesus is saying, that’s right. When somebody doesn’t understand the gospel, it’s not your inability. It’s not that the gospel doesn’t have power. Their heart is not open. It lands on the wayside and immediately, before they even have a chance to really start to chew on it, the Bible says, and we’ll know in a moment about this, demonic powers come and snatch the word away. This is serious stuff. Listen to this. In Jeremiah 29, 13, Jeremiah 29, 13, the Bible says, God says, and you will seek me and find me when you search for me with all of your heart. When the seed falls upon the heart of somebody who is, well, I don’t know. You know, I’m just not interested. I’ve got my world. I got my life. I got my stuff. I got my plan. I’m not interested in that. They don’t get it. They don’t understand it. You tell them about Christmas and they go, I don’t care. You tell them about the meaning of Easter, I don’t care. What’s happening to them? The Bible says there’s demonic forces that are snatching the word right out of their presence. And yet if their heart is open, if they want to seek after God, God will reveal himself to them. Jesus interprets the parable. Look at Matthew 13, 19. Anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, then look at this, look at this. Then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is he who received the seed by the wayside. You see how the Bible’s interpreting the Bible? Isn’t it awesome? Isn’t it awesome? Now you know that the birds are evil. Jesus even says the wicked one is being revealed in the picture being painted by the birds. Wow, now I get that. Satan comes. Jesus is saying Satan and his workers try to keep you from hearing the word of God. Think of that. You ever go to church and you’re excited and look, this happens to all of us, even Christians. He’s still, in fact, I should address this. Non-Christians, he’s trying to steal the word away from constantly. Then once you become a Christian, he’s trying to steal the word away from you constantly. Why? Because now that he lost your soul, he’s lost you forever. You say, why does he just give up then and leave me alone? Because you now, though he’s lost you, you are a great threat to the kingdom of hell. Because God wants to use you to rescue your husband or your wife or your mom or dad or your kids or your neighbors. And Satan, he may have lost you, but he is not going to let you succeed because you could be used by God to win others to Christ. That’s why your witness is always under threat.
SPEAKER 01 :
pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs here on Real Life Radio with his message called Parable of the Sower Part 1. Thanks for being with us today. You know, this message is part of Pastor Jack’s series called The Parables of Jesus. It’s a series that highlights the teachings of Jesus while he was ministering here on earth. And we’ll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio. The cross. For a lot of us, it’s just a symbol that we wear around our necks, right? Display in our homes or maybe hang from the rearview mirror. But what if instead of being a decoration or accessory, the cross motivated and shaped the way we live every single day of our lives? What if it wasn’t about hiding or minimizing our sin, but actually crucifying it in order to move forward in the freedom that Christ offers? Born Crucified. It’s a book by Ellie Maxwell. In this book, you’ll discover what it truly means to live in a cross-centered life. This short but very powerful book is a classic for every Christian’s library. It reminds us that the cross isn’t just a symbol. It’s the key to victory over sin and the power to serve God effectively. Now, if you’re ready to experience the freedom and purpose found in a life centered on the cross, this book is one that you should get. Born Crucified. It’s available for a gift of any amount at jackhibbs.com slash real radio. That’s jackhibbs.com slash real radio. Pastor Jack, we heard from Michael, sent us a listener letter. Michael recently gave his life to Christ. So let me read it to you. Dear Pastor Jack, I recently gave my life to Jesus. Not too soon afterwards, I was browsing YouTube and saw a video called Jack Hibbs on mental health. In this video, you mentioned Philippians 4, verses 4 through 9. Now, I opened my Bible, and the verses literally matched almost everything I had just prayed for. He says, I cried with joy. Isn’t that great? Realizing that God was with me. I got chills just reading that myself. He says, thank you, Pastor Jack, for doing God’s work. Michael. Now, we don’t encourage what we call Bible roulette, right? But the chances of that happening naturally are astoundingly low. Does God work through that sort of thing?
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, I mean, first of all, We should never lean upon Bible roulette. And for those of you who don’t know what we’re talking about, that is like, oh, God, I need you to speak to me. So help me. And you plop, you know, you run your fingers through the Bible with your eyes closed and then plant your finger and then look at a verse. You could have landed on a verse that says, and Judas went out and hung himself. So that’s probably not a good thing to do. However, there is no doubt about it. that there are times when you are in a specific moment and need, and it just so happens, right, which I do not believe just so happens happens, that that’s exactly the verse I needed to hear. Or I’ve heard this verse, this is now the second time I’ve heard that verse, or the fifth time I’ve heard that verse. God, what are you saying? What are you doing? Yeah, it happens in my life. I will read a verse and the more obscure I’m reading this verse, I’m looking, I’m pondering, Lord, what does that mean in my life? You know, how does this apply? And, you know, part of Bible growth is knowing what questions to ask yourself and to ask God. And then, you know, you get up and you go about your day and then a moving truck goes down the street and has the same exact Bible verse on it where it’s like, Lord, thank you. Yeah. So the beautiful thing is, is that our God is not a God of coincidence. He’s a God of planning. And so what that means for Michael is that God is speaking to him loud and clear.
SPEAKER 01 :
Hey, you know, if you’d like to drop a note of encouragement to Pastor Jack, that’d be awesome. He’d really love to see what you have to say about him and how his ministries affected your life. So please do that. Go to the Connect tab at jackhibbs.com. That’s the tab labeled Connect at jackhibbs.com. This program is made possible by the generous contributions of you, our listeners. Visit us at jackhibbs.com. That’s jackhibbs.com. Until next time, Pastor Jack Hibbs and all of us here at Real Life Radio wish for you solid and steady growth in Christ and in His Word. We’ll see you next time here on Real Life Radio.
