God & Man - The Saviour

And the common people heard him gladly.

There ends the reading of God's word.

Congregation, I want you to think for a moment of a court case, a criminal trial. In every trial, ordinarily, witnesses are called and they are subject to be examined by both the side that is trying to prove guilt, the prosecution, as well as the defense.

What we have before us is something similar to witnesses called in a criminal case. The Lord Jesus had been called by the prosecution. They'd found Him in the temple and first came to Him a combined band of men, of Herodians and scribes, and they asked Him, is it lawful to pay tribute to Caesar?

Following on from there, the Sadducees came and asked him with that sort of argument that is totally absurd about the resurrection. And then following that, there was someone who was genuine, but still wanted to see if Jesus was authoritative.

Now in any trial, Once a witness has been cross-examined, and children, cross-examining a witness means that the opposing side can ask them questions, there's opportunity for a redirect, where the side that called the witness, the side that feels that witness's testimony is most supportive to them is enabled to redirect and ask questions again. And what we're going to see this morning in Mark 12, verses 35 to 37, is the Lord Jesus' redirect.

We're going to see the Lord Jesus come as his own witness and God will be his witness. He will assert that he is the Messiah, the true Son of David, fully God and fully man.

The Lord Jesus comes as His own witness with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit to testify of His divinity and that He is the true Messiah. We hope this morning to see that the Lord Jesus is both fully God and fully man.

We hope that you will realize that this is important for your salvation, that your Messiah had to be fully God, fully man, and he had to be one person with both of those natures. And we'll also see how the Trinity here not only witnesses of the divinity of the Lord Jesus, but how the Trinity is important in our own salvation.

And we're gonna do this in three points, three points.

Our first point is the tables turned, the tables turned.

Our second point is the triune God's witness to our salvation. of the Son, the triune God's witness of the Son. And really, probably better said, the triune God's witness of the Messiah, the triune God's witness of the Messiah.

And then finally, we're going to see He was heard gladly. He was heard gladly.

The tables turned

So beginning with our first point, the tables turned, we read in Mark 12 verse 34, that after he had spoken to the last scribe and told him that he was not far from the kingdom of heaven, that no man would ask him any question.

The Lord Jesus has already literally turned over the tables in the temple, but now rhetorically he is going to turn the tables by putting a question to the scribes and the Pharisees as well as the Sadducees. They're not going to answer, and really it seems like what's going on here is you've got a group that have come from the Sanhedrin, the ruling authority that have been asking him these questions, and a crowd has amassed.

And the Lord Jesus is going to ask a question, and the crowd will hear him gladly, but he will not receive an answer.

And the question that the Lord Jesus asked is, how say the scribes that Christ is the son of David?

Now, this is very significant.

You have to understand the context of it. The Lord Jesus in the last two chapters has been called the Son of David. At the end of chapter 10 in the 48th verse, blind Bartimaeus, pleading for Christ to have mercy on him, calls out to Him as the Son of David. He says, Thou Son of David, have mercy on me.

Immediately following the account of blind Bartimaeus, In chapter 11, the Lord Jesus enters the city of Jerusalem at what's called the triumphal entry. And when he comes into the city of Jerusalem, what do we read? Blessed be the kingdom. of our Father David that cometh in the name of the Lord." When they say, blessed be the kingdom of our Father David, they're identifying that Jesus is the Son of David, that He is the iteration at this point of David's kingdom.

I bring these two examples up to say simply this, the idea that Christ was the son of David was a common idea at that point in time. It did not need to be justified, it did not need to be explained. When people thought of the promised Messiah, one of the presuppositions they had is he would be the son of David coming from the Davidic line.

So the Lord Jesus really deals with something that is a fact. And he asks, how exactly do they say this? And then he's going to go on and he's going to introduce an additional dynamic. So he's basically said, how do the scribes say this is the truth? And then he's gonna add our second question.

And really this leads us right into our second point.

The triune God's witness of the Messiah

And by the way, the second point will be the place where we spend the majority of our time. David says, first, how does the scribes say that Christ is the son of David? For David himself said by the Holy Ghost. We're entering in now to our second point.

You see, The Lord Jesus is going to quote Psalm 110, and it's a psalm that was known at the time in the same way that the Messiah was the son of David. It was a psalm that was known at the time to be messianic. That is to be a psalm that prophesied of the coming of the Messiah.

The Lord Jesus, notice what he says, he says, for David said by the Holy Ghost. He's bringing forth the fact that the Spirit of God is the one that had inspired this prophecy of David, that it was not merely of human authorship, but rather was divine and carried with it divine authority.

The Lord Jesus wants the scribes to know, as He asked them this question, that it's not coming from Him, but it's coming from God, at least what He is about to quote.

And then He quotes Psalm 110. The Lord said to my Lord, sit thou on my right hand.

Now if you look at your copy of God's Word, There should be, of course, in verse 36, two instances of Lord. And in Psalm 110, verse 1, there's also two instances of Lord. And the quote here from Psalm 110, I should explain.

In the Old Testament, God reveals himself by his names. You probably are familiar with some of these names. Elohim, Jehovah, Adonai, God reveals himself by these names.

And when we read, the Lord said to my Lord, the first Lord in verse 36 should be capital I. And the reason why, if you're a reader of the Bible, perhaps you know, the reason why LORD here is in all caps is because it's Jehovah. It's the divine name that God revealed Himself to Moses by in Exodus at the burning bush when He said that He is the Great I Am. That He is I Am that I Am.

So what you have is, Jehovah said to my Lord. That second instance of Lord is not in all caps. And the Hebrew word used there is Adonai. And Adonai means, most literally, Lord exercising authority or sovereign.

And notice what David, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is saying. He says, Jehovah said to my Lord, he is speaking of this Adonai as a separate person, but also as his Lord. And Jehovah tells this Adonai, this Lord, to sit on his right hand till he makes his enemies his footstool.

And you see in the broader context of the Psalm, David is speaking about the Messiah. No one has any doubt about that, but Jesus is demonstrating to us that David saw this Messiah, not only as his descendant, not only coming out of his line, but as one who was greater than he is.

In the ancient world, that's not often, though, how it worked. first century Jewish mind, this was something that was very difficult to wrap around because David is the man after God's own heart. David is the true King of Israel, if you will. There's one great King of Israel and that's David and everybody else is lesser than David. So the question comes, how can he say this about the Messiah?

Fathers in Jewish culture never would have reverenced their sons as Lord. They never would have given them that dignified of a view. So what is exactly David, as Jesus reminds us, speaking under the power of the Holy Spirit, saying in this prophetic prophecy?

Jesus goes on in verse 37, and David says, therefore himself calleth him Lord. So how can he be both David's Lord and his son? And what is the Lord Jesus, dear congregation, trying to prove to us out of this text?

Well, the Lord Jesus is trying to bring a claim from the witness of the Holy Spirit, from the witness of the Father, and from David calling Him Lord, His own witness. He's bringing a witness that He is the very Son of God. that He is not only the descendant of David, that is to say a man, but that He is fully God.

You say, Pastor, David's descendant can be greater than Him. So how can you show me that He's God? What's interesting here is when the Lord says to my Lord, sit thou at my right hand, that being seated at the right hand is a sign of It's a position of honor. It's a sign of one who is in the ancient world, a privileged place that has equal authority with the person that allows them to sit on their right hand. Do you see what Jesus is asserting? Jesus is saying that He Himself is God. That He is going to sit on the right hand of His Father.

And in a way, there's something very mysterious about this. When we speak about the Lord Jesus Christ, we are bound to say that He is one person congregation with two natures. And you might be tempted to sort of say, okay, pastor, you said we were gonna talk about the divinity of the Son and the Trinity, and you've told us that the second point is going to be the most of our time, and you say, I want really something practical. Well, this is very practical, but first I have to explain the doctrine. He's one person with two natures, fully God and fully man, but one person.

And here's where it gets practical. You could not be saved without the Lord Jesus Christ being both fully God and fully man. And you say, can you explain that to me? Well, I can. First, He had to be God. And you might say, why did the Messiah have to be God?

Well, the larger catechism in questions and answers 38 to 40 actually gives a very detailed exposition of why the Lord Jesus had to be God, why he had to be man, and why he had to be one person with both. those natures. I just want to give you some practical highlights from that.

So why is it that the Messiah had to be fully God? Why is it, you may ask, that he needed to be divine? Well, I want you to think for a moment about the work of Christ on the cross. And if you this morning are a Christian, that work on the cross is something that you have profound gratitude for, thankfulness for, and you can acknowledge that the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ changed your life.

But do you realize that when the Lord Jesus was on the cross, He was there in your stead, and it's mysterious, but the eternal wrath of God was poured out on Him on that cross. And so why did He have to be God? Because man could not stand up to the eternal wrath of God poured out on Him on that cross. A mere human would have sunk under the infinite wrath of God, our catechism says, and furthermore, when we see that he suffered and that he was obedient and now he intercedes his divinity for lack of a better way of saying it, His divinity gives worth to those things. Why is His obedience so glorious? Why is His obedience so worthy? Because He's God. Why? are His sufferings accepted by the Father? Why are His sufferings of infinite value simply put because He is His Son and He is divine? Why, congregation, does the Father view His intercession with such favor? Because Because, congregation, He is God. He is the Lord that Jehovah has allowed to sit on His right hand.

Dear congregation, when we think of The Lord Jesus Christ is sitting on the right hand of God. This speaks directly to his intercession. In fact, this is called the session of Christ. You see, God has given him this privileged place as the mediator, as the God-man, and he sits on God's right hand, and what does he do? We read in Hebrews that he ever lives to make intercession for his people. We've read about how the Lord Jesus Christ We know, I trust, not only have read, but we know that the Lord Jesus Christ loves to intercede for His people with His Father, that He prays for them, that He knows them, that He cares for them. It's only because He is fully God that He can intercede and be at the right hand of His Father.

So, You needed a savior that was fully God, but you also needed a savior that was fully man. And the reason why he had to be fully man is because as we read in Romans 5, it's very clearly demonstrated that Christ is the second Adam, that by one man's sin came into the world, but the Lord Jesus came to seek and save that which was lost in doing this. He took to himself a human nature. He humbled himself and he submitted himself to the law. He was tempted, but kept God's law perfectly so that his people can have a perfect righteousness.

Well, dear sinner, can we dwell on this truth for a moment? When we think of the glorious doctrine of justification, so often we immediately think, don't we, of sins being forgiven. And that is true. God, in justification, does no longer look. He pardons his people's iniquities. But do you know what else God does in justification? God looks at the disobedient sinner that is totally imperfect, and he imputes to them children. That means he added to their account He imputes to them a perfect righteousness. The ungodly sinner is given a perfect righteousness in the sight of God. And do you know that Christ That perfect righteousness that you were imputed, that you were given, that is a free gift of God's grace, is the perfect righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. When he came and lived a life of obedience under the law, he merited that righteousness. and that righteousness is now given to you so that God no longer looks at you and condemns you, but now you stand perfect in God's sight and your sins have been separated from you, to quote Psalm 103, as far as the east is from the west.

Christ had to be man because He had to be under the law. so that he could give his people a perfect righteousness, so that he could truly be the second Adam.

And you come, sinner, I want to speak to you, the one outside the Lord Jesus Christ for a moment. Your righteousness is your best deeds. The traits about yourself you think that are most commendable and might be most pleasing to God They are actually but filthy rags in the sight of the Lord, and they will condemn you. You're a sinner. You have little, actually no hope in this world apart from the Redeemer. apart from the one who can take off the filthy rags of your own righteousness and give you a pure, if you will, white robe of his own perfections. And that's only the Lord Jesus Christ.

You need a divine Savior, but you need a human Savior. And dear sinner, he has His sacrifice and His obedience are of infinite worth. And He has a large wardrobe, if you will, full of the white robes of His perfect righteousness. And He is offering them to you this morning. He says, come unto Me, all ye that labor. I will strip you of your filthy garments and I will cleanse you and make you as white as snow.

But why else must the Lord Jesus be man. Not only so that he could be obedient to the law, but also creation so that he would know our infirmities. If you look at Hebrews chapter 4, you'll find something very interesting there. It concludes in verse 16, 416, of speaking of the throne of grace, that we should come boldly before it. But before that it says we have a high priest which cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities. Really what the scriptures mean there is that he sympathizes with, he understands the infirmities of his people because he shared the same nature as them, because he lived among them, yet he was without sin.

Sometimes perhaps you'll talk to someone about your problem. and they'll come back at you and they'll say, well, look, I really wanna help you. I'm trying to understand, but I've never really had the experience that you've had, or I don't really understand. I don't know where to go. The Lord Jesus Christ is not like that at all. He had a human nature. He's seen human frailty. He's lived among sinners. He is full of compassion. He is a kind high priest who invites us to come before the throne of grace, and he's sympathetic when you come.

Do you know what, dear child of God? Do you know it? That the Lord is sympathetic. When you go to God with your problems, that you have an intercessor who is sympathetic to you, who understands your weaknesses. He understands your frailties. He remembers that you are but dust and He knows it and He sympathizes with you.

Fully God and fully man. He had to be fully man. Because in order to redeem, He had to share like nature with His people. So to go to the cross in order to redeem His people, He had to be a true man.

You think about that glorious truth for a moment. That the Lord Jesus Christ took to himself, he took to himself a human nature. so that He could suffer on the cross, so that He could in your stead suffer. Not only so that He could be obedient in this life. Yes, He was. Not only did He do this so that He could make intercession and be a sympathetic High Priest, but He did it so that He could literally one-to-one suffer in the stead of His people.

Have you ever had somebody maybe a boss at work or a coworker, and you've really made a mistake, and the higher-ups are very upset at you, and maybe you're new on the job, or there's other things going on, and one of your coworkers or your immediate bosses look, I'm gonna take the rap. for this for you, because for whatever reason, I know it's not your fault, you did your best, but they've decided that they are willing to bear the wrath of the higher-ups in your stead. And what does it do? It produces for you great gratitude to that person. It produces an endearment. You respect that person. You begin, in a sense, to love that person. You hold that person in high regard.

Child of God, do you hold the Lord Jesus Christ in high regard? And are you growing in, if you will, love and respect to him for what he has done for you, that he the eternal Lord of glory took to Himself a true body and a reasonable soul so that He could live in this veil of tears that ultimately led Him to the cross, that the wrath of His Father in pouring out His just anger and wrath on sin could be put to the God-man on the cross so that you could be redeemed.

Why must he be man to be the second Adam to fulfill all righteousness? He must be man in order to be a sympathetic high priest and intercessor. And lastly, he had to be man so that he could suffer the wrath of God on the cross in your stead.

Do you see you needed a savior who is both fully God and fully man? And then you say, okay, pastor, why? Did he need to be one person with true natures?

The larger catechism question 40 answers that so beautifully. When the question is why was it requisite that the mediator should be God and man in one person? And I'll just give you, I'll give you the answer because it's beautiful. It was requisite that the mediator who was to reconcile God and man should be both himself God and man. And in this one person, that the proper works of each nature, that is to say, His divine nature and His human nature might be accepted of God for us and relied on us by the works of His whole person. You might say, it's quite academic. It's really simple. It's really simple, and I'll give it to you more simply. Why did the Lord Jesus have to be God and man? He had to have both natures in order to exercise, or in order, forgive me, to repair the breach between both God and man. He had to share likeness with both in order to exercise his ministry of reconciliation.

So, The Lord Jesus here in our text is telling us. He's really declaring to us congregation that the Messiah had to be both fully God and fully man.

And dear sinner, can I just go back to you and say, you need this mediator. If you are outside of the Lord Jesus Christ today, you need this mediator. There is none other that will do You must come to the God-man. You must come to the Lord Jesus Christ. And you must say to him, oh God, as David said, that the Lord said to his Lord. You cry out and you say, Lord, make him my Lord too. Make him my intercessor. Make him my savior. Make him to be my all and all. Cry out, dear sinner, to God that all may be, as Paul says, as dung and nothing for an exchange and for the sake of the glorious knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. But also realize this, that if the Christ, the Messiah had to be fully God and fully man. And we've covered all of the intricacies of how both as God and man, he was able to save his people. You must realize that you are not only not God, but you're an imperfect man or woman or child. And that if he had to be both God and man to save his people, you must come to terms with the fact that there is nothing that you can do to save your people. that you are a needy sinner and that all is undone with you. But in him, the God-man, there is hope, forgiveness, and reconciliation. And he offers his gospel to you, his glorious good news. And he says, he's a savior of only one type, And that's a poor and an undone sinner. He says that He can forgive. He says that He can wash clean. He says that He can give you a new righteousness. He says that if you come to Him by faith, He's willing to receive you. So, sinner, come to the Messiah, fully God and fully man.

Going back to our text, the Lord Jesus has testified that God is both fully God and fully man, but I mentioned it earlier, but do you notice the Trinitarian sort of invocation here? That David spoke not of his own power and authority, but by the Spirit. That Jehovah, that is God the Father, said to Adonai, that is God the Son. This text, witnessing of who the Lord Jesus is, is explicitly Trinitarian, and it shouldn't surprise us at all, because when we look at the baptism of the Lord Jesus, what do we find there in Matthew chapter three, that as he begins his earthly ministry, We see that when he was baptized, he went up out of the water and lo, the heavens were opened and he saw the spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting upon him. And lo, a voice came from heaven saying, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.

Notice when Christ as the Messiah is witnessed to The other two persons of the Trinity are invoked in Matthew 3, as well as here in Mark 12. You say, okay, pastor, we believe in the Trinity. And you say, I know it's a mystery, but I want to speak to you about why the Trinity is actually very practical for your faith for a moment. Because I'm convinced that many evangelical believers, many Christians are well-intentioned, and they sort of will say that the Trinity is this mysterious truth that we profess, that there is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit, that the distinction between God the Son and God the Father is that God the Father eternally begets the Son and that the Son is eternally begotten and the distinction between the Spirit and the Father and the Son is the Spirit is perspired, children big word, meaning simply breathed out or poured out both by the Father and by the Son. These are the distinctions, the personal distinctions between the Trinity but they are, these three persons are one God and they have one will."

And you say, oh, that's confusing, Pastor. I don't understand. As an early church father, I always think of his phrase. Every time I think of the Trinity, he says, every time I think of the one, I think of the three. And every time I think of the three, I think of the one. And that's how it has to be with us. But I want to make the Trinity practical for you. It's not just some abstract doctrinal truth that we must affirm. Do you know that your salvation depends on the action of each person of the Trinity? Now they share, they cooperate. You cannot really divide the works of one person of the Trinity from another, but we do make a distinction that the scriptures seem to associate certain works with certain persons of the Godhead in relation to our redemption.

I can explain that to you very briefly. God the Father, we read in Ephesians 1, we heard last Lord's Day, that He is elected, that He's loved His people with an everlasting love, and that He's given His people to His Son. So the Father is the one that elects in love. The Son is given these people, and what does the Son do? He purchases their redemption on the cross. And then what does the Spirit do? The Spirit is the one that applies the redemption that is purchased. The Spirit is the one that dwells in the hearts of every true child of God.

If you think more about prayer for a moment, who do you pray to? The Father. And how are you taught to pray? Well, we often pray in the name of the Son. And why do we pray in the name of the Son? Well, it's really quite simple. It's the Son in purchasing redemption that is opened a way for us to pray to the Father. It is the Son who intercedes, who intercedes at God's right hand for the prayers of His people. He's the one that cleanses them, that beautifies them, that presents them before His heavenly Father.

Do you ever feel like your prayers are what they should be? I'm sure you do. Do your thoughts wander? You cry out to God as Father and you pray for a little bit and your thoughts wander. it seems like they go off in every which direction, and noises around the house, or the phone ringing, or someone calls out to you, and it seems like there's always distractions that are present, and sometimes it feels like, how can you shut off the world? You'll be praying about something, and next thing you know, you've sort of ceased from praying, and instead you're just thinking about it, or following through the various solutions of how an end might come to pass. And then you sort of draw back and you say, but I was supposed to be not meditating to myself, not just thinking about it, but I was supposed to be praying to God.

This is the beauty of the intercessory ministry of the Lord Jesus. Now, I'm not saying you should happily pray with thoughts wandering, not knowing what to say. I'm not saying that at all. You should strive to be disciplined in prayer. But I will say this, when your prayers are like a little three-year-old boy who wants to pick a bouquet for his mommy. And there's all sorts of weeds and briars in the midst of that bouquet. What the Lord Jesus does is He sees Himself in His people. He loves His people. He purchased redemption for His people. And so before He presents those glorious prayers before the Father, He plucks out all of the weeds and the briars. And what He presents is a beautiful final product.

And they said, oh, pastor, sometimes I don't even know the words to say. Well, we pray, don't we, in the name of the Son, but we read in Romans 8, by the aid of the Spirit, that the Spirit helps His people to pray. Isn't it a glorious and precious truth that even when we do not know what to say, that we are so burdened that it seems all we have are mutterings and groans? that the Spirit can present those prayers and that Christ can intercede on behalf of His people and that God the Father loves His people enough to hear their prayers even when they are so imperfect.

The triune God, dear Christian, has saved you. The triune God plays an important role in your Christian life, and please never forget that. Think, meditate on the love of God the Father to his people. Think and meditate on the Father sending his Son as the provision to be the propitiation for the sins of his people. Think of the love of the Lord Jesus Christ that drew him to the cross. Think of him now as a sympathetic high priest at God's right hand who still has a high regard for His people. Think of the Holy Spirit as the One that indwells you, that works in you to sanctify you, that is working in you to teach you God's ways.

Have you ever been in a situation sort of are dealing with a group of people and you know that there's one person on your side and maybe they'll be able to convince the other two or three or four, however many it'll be. Or maybe you know there's a couple people that are sympathetic to you and others that aren't and there's a few on the fence as well. That's not how it is with God. God is totally for his people. You can't pit one person of the Trinity against the others. That's blasphemy to say, and I say it with all reverence, but I think people sometimes do it in their mind. God the Father loves you, dear child of God, with an everlasting love. Christ loves you, so He purchased redemption for you. And the Spirit of God, He loves you, so He indwells you and sanctifies you and applies to you all the benefits of the Lord Jesus Christ. You may never think that God is not on your side if you are a child of God, a Christian.

So the Lord Jesus in our text, he absolutely beautifully, doesn't he, presents himself by quoting from Psalm 110. He presents himself as fully God and fully man. He also has invoked the Trinity. He's brought us to remember that God, all three Persons of the Godhead work in the salvation of sinners. And all three Persons of the Godhead testify that He is the Mediator, the Messiah, the Anointed One, the One whose name is Jesus, which means He will save His people from their sins.

Jesus has asserted these truths. He's called the scribes to account. He's asked them the question. He says, David calls him Lord. How is he then his son? And there is no answer.

He was heard gladly

And this leads us into our third and final point, that the common people heard him gladly. The Scribes, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, they were shut up. They did not know how to answer this. And it doubtless would have registered in their mind that if He is the Messiah, if He is the true Son of David, not only is He claiming to be a descendant of David, but He's claiming to be God. And they have no answer for this. He has totally confounded them.

But who's willing to hear Him? the common people. Who's willing to hear what the Lord Jesus Christ says? Well, it is. It's the common people, and they heard him gladly, didn't they? And there's two quick things I want to say about the common people hearing the Lord Jesus Christ gladly.

First, if you're here in this congregation, I hope you always desire to hear the Lord Jesus gladly, even when, as this morning, we went into the most solemn truths, we delved into deep waters and we tried to make the divinity and the humanity of the sun as practicable, practical I should say, for the Christian life as we could as we looked at the triune God and also tried to make God the triune God, as practical for the Christian life as we could, but we've heard much of God's redeeming work, haven't we? And I have to ask you, have you heard it gladly? And I hope you hear it gladly. This is, in a sense, a commending of these people's witness before us that Mark gives, that the religious leaders were shut off, but the people heard the Lord Jesus gladly. And I hope that you hear Christ. gladly.

But I have to tell you something. And this is the second thing that this should remind us of. In just a few days' time, the people that hear Him gladly now are going to be crying out, crucify Him, crucify Him. They're going to be screaming when Pontius Pilate says basically, who do you want? Barabbas or Jesus of Nazareth? They are going to cry out, give us the criminal, the murderer, the seditioner, Arabus.

Bearing this reality in mind, it reminds us, doesn't it, that every group that hears the word of God is always a mixed multitude. There are some that believe There are some that do not believe. And when I read that they received the Word gladly, and then I thought, as I was meditating on this sermon of what would happen in a few days' time, it reminded me of the parable of the sower. There are the four soils. It's in Matthew 13, if you want the reference. The first is, of course, the stony ground. And that, the seed falls on, it's by the Actually, sorry, the first is the wayside here. And it falls on the wayside. The ground is hard and immediately the fowls come and devour it up. And then the second type of furu is the stony ground here. And they fall on stony ground, but they still manage to spring forth. They try to put forth roots, but they can't because there's no deepness of earth. And then when the sun comes up and scorches them, they wither away. And then there's the thorny ground here. And that's when the seed is sown among the thorns and it's choked up. And then finally, there's the here where the seed falls on good ground, then it takes root and where the gospel takes root. Remember, it always brings forth fruit.

And we read the people Heard them gladly. It reminded me of the disciples coming to Jesus and asking Him to explain the parable of the sower. And He says, the stony ground hearers are those that receive the seed in stony places, the same as he, He says, that heareth the word with joy and receiveth it. But he has no root of himself, and it dureth for a while. That is, it carries on for a while, But when tribulation or persecution arises because of the Word, by and by, he is offended.

Why do I reference the stony ground here? Because they received the Word gladly. But ultimately, when it came time for the Lord Jesus to be crucified, when they saw that He was not the Messiah that they wanted, They forsook Him. And so often it is. And it's an observation, by the way, congregation, as a pastor, I would make to you, anytime someone comes on to the Word, to the Gospel, to the church even, very strong, I often wonder, will they fall away? And here they're hearing gladly. but they haven't heard, at least not all of them have heard truly. And so the question before us here this morning, as I conclude, is as the Lord Jesus Christ in our text witnessed of Himself, showed us who He is, if we receive the Word gladly, is it because the seed's fallen on good ground and you're growing in grace? Or do you receive the Word gladly because you're not fully rooted? And you receive it initially with gladness, but you will fall away.

Let's pray.

O Lord, our God, we draw near the throne of grace and we humbly Do plead to our Heavenly Father in the name of the Son, trusting that the Spirit will aid us in prayer, that we would reverence the Son, that we would hear Him preached gladly, that we would see Him as both fully God and fully man, that we would realize that this is essential, O Lord, for our salvation. And further, Lord, we pray that we would realize that God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit work in the redemption of all the elect. We pray, God, that we would reverence the Son, the Father, the Holy Spirit. We pray, O Heavenly Father, that this message would be laid up in our hearts by faith, that the Spirit would apply it unto us, and that we would grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ. And it's in His name we pray, Amen.