Mark 4 — Mark 3-5

0:00 Let's pray. Father, we are grateful that you brought us here today. We pray that your word is it's open will will go forth and not come back void. We're grateful that you have written it, that we have it today, that we can study it and without end it can provide more and more insight. Lord, we pray now that as as we do consider this passage in Mark that you will bring out that which is important to you and those things that I say that aren't won't be remembered.

0:34 We pray these things in your son's name, Amen. Turn with me if you will to Mark chapter four. Mark chapter four. Before I got started though I wanted to just send a shout out and a thank you. Thank you to Bob and Nancy sitting on opposite sides of the room today.

1:00 If ever there's something funny I try to say or mistakenly say, they're usually the first ones to laugh. So now I can hear it in stereo. Thank you. Always looking out for me. Mark chapter four beginning in verse one.

1:20 We'll read this portion and then pick up some others later. Four one, and again he began to teach by the sea and a great multitude was gathered to him. So that he got into a boat and sat in it on the sea and the whole multitude was on the land facing the sea. Then he taught them many things by parables and said to them in his teaching, listen, behold, a sower went out to sow and it happened as he sowed that some seed fell by the wayside and the birds of the air came and devoured it. Some fell on stony ground where it did not have much earth and immediately, it sprang up because it had no depth, immediately, it sprang up because it had no depth of earth.

2:02 But when the sun was up, it was scorched and because it had no root, it withered away. And some seed fell among the thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no crop. But other seed fell on good ground and yielded a crop that sprang up, increased and produced, some 30 fold, some 60, and some a 100. And he said to them, he who has ears, let him hear. Verse 10, but when he was alone, those around him with the 12 asked him about the parable and he said to them, to you, it has been given to know the mystery of the kingdom of god but to those who are outside, all things come in parables so that seeing, they may see and not perceive and hearing, they may hear and not understand, lest they should turn, and their sins should be forgiven them.

2:54 And he said to them, do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables? The sower sows the word, and these are the ones by the wayside where the word is sown. When they hear, Satan comes immediately and takes away the word that was sown in their hearts. Likewise, these likewise are the ones sown on stony ground who when they hear the word, immediately receive it with gladness and they have no root in themselves and so endure only for a time.

3:25 Afterward, when tribulation or persecution arises, for the word's sake, immediately they stumble. Now these are the ones sown among thorns. They are the ones who hear the word and the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things entering in chokes, choke the word and it becomes unfruitful. But these are the ones sown on good ground. Those who hear the word accept it and bear fruit, some 30 fold, some 60 and some a 100.

4:00 So I just thought I'd start off with a little bit of introduction. Kind of put this in context. Remember, were working our way through the book of Mark and Mark is is direct, concise, a straight outline. You can't go through Mark without stumbling over the man Jesus, and we have to deal with that, and we'll continue to do that as we do it today. Chapter three was well expounded on by Ray a few weeks ago.

4:25 He said that there were four responses illustrated there from the common man to demons, family, religious, politicians. End of the day though, each person has his own choice to make to decide about Jesus and what he means in their life. I hope I got that pretty close, Ray. So, chapter four, I think we're gonna talk a little bit about what happens when you've made that decision to follow Jesus, okay? I think that's what we're looking at here and we'll take up this sowing truth that is it's revealed, how the soil's prepared or what type of soil, how the light hopefully if we get this far, we'll see that that it should shine like a lamp, grow like a field and mature like a tree is the way I want to put it.

5:12 And if we were to go on to Chapter five, we can see that we're gonna talk a little bit about who can be reached by Jesus. So there's a theme following through here. Chapter five will talk about people on the fringe of society, those that seem to be beyond hope or suffer in such suffering that they couldn't be saved, and even one without life. So, at the end of the day, everyone can be saved. So that's just a view of where we're at in Mark today.

6:04 It's a lot of worry. He centered the initial teaching in Mark, and and he's he's become a... An attraction, if you will. People from far and wide had known his reputation and are coming to see him. Okay?

6:18 So they're by the sea, and and and we have this problem of crowd management. So many people came in chapter two that they spilled out of the house and people couldn't get to see him. And maybe some were so far away that they couldn't even hear him. And now we've got even bigger problems. So the the the disciples, some of them, which were fishermen.

6:37 Right? I got an idea. How about this? We used the water like a stage, a boat like a a pulpit, and and the the ground around it, there are the banks of the hills. Imagine, you know, the banks would would come down to the water and as he's he's put out in the boat, he sat down in the boat or he stood.

6:56 I I'm gonna think he he sat down because it's kinda hard to stand in one of those boats, but he's he's he was there in the boat projecting his voice up to the hillside, and there he was teaching as if in an amphitheater. And he says he taught in parables. Parables, I put the definition there as dictionary.com handed it back to me, says, is a short... I I I used the... It says allegorical, but I don't know what that word means, so I I I picked symbolic.

7:26 A short symbolic story designed to illustrate or teach some truth, a religious principle, or moral lesson. So that's what Jesus is teaching here. It's an important time. It's a break, if you will, a pivot in his teaching where he goes into teaching in parables for a specific purpose, okay? The the parables have a purpose.

7:50 We'll talk a little bit about that. Why he was choosing to speak in parables and these symbolic stories. Okay? So he's teaching them, and and he often uses what's around them, what they would have experienced in their life, okay? And one of the things they may have experienced, or likely had experienced getting to this conference, we'll call it that, this teaching, was they had to get there, right?

8:17 They had to travel over miles maybe, through fields, along dusty roads. I think it would look something like this, as they drove their pickups along a dusty, dirty road, they would see these fields on the side as they walked along and consider them as they walked. Okay, now yeah they didn't have pickups back then. They probably walked miles. They probably had dirty feet.

8:45 They probably took just what they could carry with them, but they knew they had to get there and they wanted to see it. But if you will, as I looked on the Internet, you know, there's so many pictures out there and if you saw on my first slide it says, I give credit to whoever took all those pictures. I don't want, I'm not using them for commercial purposes, but I'm trying to illustrate to you the point here. And I found this picture, which has a special memory, a fond memory for me. This is the last time my dad was in Montana.

9:16 He passed last week and we miss him a lot. But if you read his obituary, he's going back. He wants to go back. He wants some of his ashes buried here.

9:28 Sorry, not exactly in this field. So, don't don't take it wrong but but it but it also helps us to understand a little bit. I think about the picture. That they may have seen and the picture that Jesus was trying to paint as he's talking to him. Remember, they're in an agricultural society.

9:49 He's saying, consider planting season as we talk about this first parable, okay? So let's narrow that picture back down and and we're going to talk about the sower. Now this is the first parable that he's bringing up and it it does several things. He he explains... He he tells the story.

10:10 He explains why he's using that technique, and then he also explains the story or explains what he meant by the story. It's very unique, not repeated, and and it's it's important for him to he's saying, if you don't get this, you aren't gonna understand a lot of what's coming up. So let me give you an example, and that's the purpose of this sower, if you will. If you're looking for parallels, okay, we can look to Matthew chapter 13 and Luke chapter eight. Very important to do that, okay, because it expounds and it expels a little bit more out, you gain a little bit of details from the repetition and from the from from the differences in the way that they portray what we're talking about.

11:44 And speaking of the same person, John chapter one verse one says, in the beginning was the word and the word was with god and the word was god. He was in the beginning with god. All things were made through him and without him, nothing was made that was made. In him was life and the life was the light of men and the light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it. So, this word is the revealed truth of and by God.

12:17 Okay? The word was Jesus. The word of truth in God was demonstrated, was shown, is... Has has been revealed to us as the word of god. So, that's the word.

12:32 The sower is going to sow the seed and I can imagine a sower having a bag of seed in that day and a hand as he walked among the field just casting that seed out, one by a handful by handful considering how it went. And I'm sure there was a skill to it. I don't know if you've ever done a job like that, but getting a seed everywhere is important. Look at the machines we have today to try and get one little seed in one little spot so that it can be perfectly planted, so you get the most out of that field. And here's here's the sower sowing his seed and scattering those seeds around and and he scatters some of it by the wayside.

13:16 You know what a wayside is? I looked that one up too. It's right next to the road. It's the roadside, okay? So you can imagine, are here these folks that had just walked along a dusty road, and they had seen many fields on the sides, And so this made sense to them.

13:33 And I have hopefully a picture for you is helping you to understand. By the wayside, he's scattering some of the seeds here on the edge of the road. Doesn't make sense, does it? But it says that you know, just from a farming perspective, that's all, he's just telling the story now. Think about this, everybody would realize that a couple things, if it's just off the road, it could easily, as the word says, be trampled down.

14:01 Right? It could be devoured by the birds. Now I don't know if you know it or not, but I've watched birds and this is a place a lot of birds hang out. Did you know that? I'm not joking, birds hang out right there.

14:17 Sometimes they'd be in the middle of the road, a lot of times on the edge of the road, and they hang out there because they need grit. They need those little pieces of stone in their gullet, I forget what exact term, I think it's a gullet, it helps them grind up the seed, grind up what they're eating, so they come down here looking for little stones. Now if they happen to see a piece of food sitting right there, that's like two for one. They're gonna gobble that up. I got...

14:48 I don't have to even fly for this into the field. It's right here. And it's laying on the surface, this hard surface, this packed down edge that it can't, you know, it's not hidden in any way. There it is, it can be gobbled up. It says there's also some were laid or scattered onto stony ground.

15:46 And so what they do is they will leave a field such as this that looks like it had wheat or oats or something like that in previously, lay for a year and it'll gather moisture. It's a semi air desert out there and so until it has enough moisture gathered up in that field, they can't plant it because it won't grow. But it's a great climate to grow these type of crops. So just a side note, I don't know if you... Maybe you learned something new today.

16:15 But if it's a stony ground, stones are frequently used in agriculture or in construction to create a area where the water can run through it, where it easily runs away from the ground, okay? And it takes it away, so there's not a lot of water hold up in that spot. So that when a seed lands here, you can see it's kind of patchy there, isn't it? It's not really densely populated, it's not, things aren't growing real well there because the water runs away. And if the plant doesn't have water, it withers, it dries up, it can't grow without water.

16:55 Okay? Much as we are, we can't grow without water either. So the wayside, the stony ground, and finally the thorns, or in this particular case, the weeds. Okay? I don't know if you can see it but I think I see a difference here along the edge of the field.

17:11 Doesn't that look a little bit more growing? Doesn't it look like it's a little more robust? There's a lot more green right there? Well, that's not what the farmer planted. Okay?

17:24 But it's what grows there naturally, quote unquote. Left untended, that field will grow weeds in it. Okay? It'll grow and in some cases the worst kind of weeds are thorns. Have you ever been through a thorn, thorny patch?

17:41 I mean, who likes to eat blackberries? Who likes to eat raspberries? Those grow on thorn bushes, okay? It's like really fun to go in there and pick them yourself, but you gotta kinda weed your way through and they're stickin' on you and they rip up the side of you. They're really good at growing themselves, okay?

18:02 And they will likely, along with other weeds, grow much faster than what you want to plant there. So if you plant the little wheat seed down there and it sprouts up and it's trying to grow, well it's going to get shaded out by that thorn or by those weeds, those things that compete better in this particular climate. So if you want it to grow, you're going to have to help it to grow. Okay? It's gonna get choked out.

18:34 The point isn't that it won't grow there because something is growing there very well. The point is that it will not yield a crop. Okay? It may sprout up, it may be growing, it may be underneath that bramble. There it is, but it's so choked out that it's not gonna yield any fruit.

18:52 It's not gonna provide anything of the purpose it was intended for. And then finally, the good ground. That ground that clearly, you can see the rows there, you can see how it's uniform, you can see how that field has been tended. It has been prepared so that when something is planted there, it's ready to grow and only that is ready to grow, okay? Water is very important, as I already mentioned in this particular case, they hold the ground for a year to gain enough moisture to grow it.

19:26 Fertilizer is really important. Have you ever planted a garden? When I was a kid we planted a lot of gardens. Every year we had to plant the garden and that meant at least two trips to the manure pile, right? You had to go and shovel.

19:41 We didn't have a, you know, front end loader or anything like that. My dad apparently didn't know anybody with a front end loader either. All he knew was three pitchforks meant my brother, myself, and I filling up the back of that truck. Now I learned from the from that experiment just how much you can put on a truck. If you ever know, I don't know if you've looked at this, your dad's taught you this, but when when you look at the springs on the truck, they're bent up like this, right, the back of the truck.

20:09 And when you bend them flat, that's when you're supposed to stop loading it. Okay. My dad would go until they went this way. And that was when there was enough to call back home. So we'd call that back home, we have to scatter it all out, plow it all in, that extra fertilizer, okay?

20:28 That matter that's with it, there's fertilizer in there, but you also put straw in there. Sometimes clipping, sometimes this, you know, they'll leave the straw from the wheat and whatnot on the field so that it breaks down. All that holds water, okay, for the purpose of making sure this field is prepared and ready to go. Good ground. Some ground is going to yield 30 fold, 30 times what was put into it, some 60, some 100, it depends on how well the soil has been prepared among other things, how much water it gets.

21:22 Lord, I don't get it. First of all, why are you telling the stories? What's up with the stories? I mean, didn't wasn't it good enough that you already healed somebody? Wasn't it good enough that you you showed your power?

21:34 Wasn't it good enough? Well, why do we have to tell em these these silly stories? What's the purpose? And and certainly, you know, we can understand them asking this point. Up to this point, there's a lot of history then, you know, talks about John the Baptist, the paralytic that was healed.

21:53 Matthew spends 12 chapters prior to this, one of which is the longest sermon written by the Lord, three chapters worth and so they're saying, hey, what's going on? And certainly it's easy for us to take that bait, that first bait to say, well, when I'm teaching my kids, what do I do? I tell them a story, it's like this, or do you... I remember when this happened, so you better not do that, or if you do this this is what might... You know we can say that a story has something hidden inside it right and it's easier to remember that way and that is true but that's not the fundamental purpose and what the Lord or not the only purpose, I'll put it that way, in why the Lord is using the parables.

22:37 He said, you are given to known... Given to know these mysteries. You are going to understand them. Some are not. There's a special meaning hidden in this parable, in this story, okay?

22:55 And it's specific and pointed, okay. It's a fulfillment of prophecy so we're going to cheat, we need to turn back to Isaiah chapter six for a minute. These are the verses that are quoted there. Probably in your Bible they either indent them or they put them in italics letters like mine and if you look at the the reference you'll find that these particular ones are coming from Isaiah They're chapter six verses nine and ten but for context, we're going to read Isaiah chapter six beginning in verse one. It says, in the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the lord sitting on the throne, high and lifted up.

23:43 And the train of his robe filled the temple. Above it stood Seraphim. Each one had six wings. With two he covered his face. With two, he covered his feet and with two, he flew and one cried to another and said, holy, holy, holy is the lord of hosts.

24:04 The whole earth is full of his glory And the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out. And the house was filled with smoke. So I said, woe is me for I'm undone because I'm a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the king, the lord of hosts. Then one of the Seraphim flew to me having in his hand a live coal which he had taken from the the tongs from the altar.

24:32 And he touched my mouth with it and said, behold, this has touched your lips. Your iniquity is taken away and your sin purged. Also, I heard the voice of the lord saying, whom shall I send and who will go for us? Then I said, here am I, send me. And he said, go and tell this people, keep on hearing but do not understand.

24:54 Keep on seeing but do not perceive. Make the heart of this people dull and their ears heavy. And shut their eyes, lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and return and be healed. So here we see Isaiah getting his charge. This is where Isaiah is commissioned if you will.

25:19 Isaiah has a beautiful, wonderful vision that we have not seen the likes of, a Seraphim and six wings and that and it just it makes you makes you just in awe But he comes to a recognition of who he is particularly in relationship to who the Lord is, holy and unholy. He's given forgiveness, his sins are purged it says with the coal on his lips. And then he's given a charge, who will go? And Isaiah, much as we are, volunteers to go on behalf of the Lord. Here am I, send me.

25:58 He's given notice. You're going to go and you're going to preach and you're going to tell and you're going to prophecy but they aren't going to listen. They're not going to hear. They're not going to understand. Just want you to know that right now.

26:14 Well, here we go. In a sense, Isaiah's charge, as I understand is to go and prove the point. One last time, go and tell them and watch as they harden their hearts. Watch as people turn away. Watch as they say, no, I do not accept that message, okay?

27:05 It causes it to be stronger and harder on the surface in particular. Okay? So in a sense, this is the point that I think the Lord is making here. Is that your message is going to further harden their hearts. It's as if you're going to be working the surface.

27:23 You are going to be showing just how hard it is they will reject the message. They are rejecting me and now the Lord says this is a fulfillment of that prophecy. Okay? The parables, these simple stories, some are going to understand, many are not. And this is a fulfillment of that prophecy just as they do and as they don't.

27:53 Okay, back to the roadside here. We're trundling along in our pickup truck on our way to see Jesus and so, he comes back and now he explains, right? He says, this these that are these seeds that end up by the wayside are people that heard but didn't understand. The devil came and and he's Satan, the devil, the wicked one, he snatched him up before they could believe. You could imagine that bird snatching it up just as soon it was there because it was unprotected and unable to grow right there.

28:29 The stony ground, they heard and received it with joy and with gladness but they had no root. They had no solid teaching, I'd like to think and and and therefore, tribulation came, persecution came upon them, and they had nothing with which to stand and they withered under that temptation and were dried up. The those that were at the thorns heard and grow. The cares of the world, however, these thorns come and cover them up. And they're so worried about that or they're so busy fighting those cares of the world and the riches, the deceitfulness of riches that they're choked and in spite of being grown there's no fruit that can be produced because of that or gathered because of it.

29:18 But finally those that hear and understand accept the task which is before them to grow, to produce, to be fruitful. Their ground is prepared, they take... They have a noble and good heart and with patience as they improve they yield 30, 60 and a hundredfold. So I think this is a story of hearts in a sense too, where at some point we have to get off the road. At least we're thinking about what's going on here, right?

29:56 Maybe I want to be in that field, but if I stand on the edge, I'm subject to being picked off. If I go and get some into the stony ground and don't have good teaching, I'm liable to wither. If I get into the weeds, sin and cares of the world can drag me down and I can't produce fruit. But if I get out there in the middle of that field, we can bear fruit and bear it abundantly. So let's talk a little bit about the sower.

30:31 There's a lot of talk about the soil, alright? So, let's talk a little bit about the sower. Was this just a dumb sower? I mean, did this guy just not know what he was doing? Was he just throwing the the seed out willy nilly, didn't know what he was doing?

30:46 I don't think so. I think he was scattering it as it says, liberally, generously, and you know what? If you don't get a few pieces to bounce to the roadside, you might not cover the whole field. But that's not his job, is it? His job is to sow.

31:07 His job is not to prepare the soil. If he if he doesn't do that, then he might not cover all the soil, not as much crop would grow. In a sense, you get the impression that as he's sowing, he doesn't know the difference. It all looks pretty much the same to him. You know if it was all uncovered, there was no green stuff here and there, little brown stuff there, he might be just sowing away thinking I don't know what's underneath there and and for the sower he don't care.

31:39 He's got a seed bag that doesn't empty. The word of the Lord just is full. It just keeps going. Just keep throwing it out there. Be generous with it.

31:51 So it's no condemnation to the sower. It's really about changing heart condition of the soil. I think it's important that we don't change the heart condition of the sower. Well, you know what? Looks like hard soil over here.

32:11 That looks good over there. I'm gonna take one seed, plant it where I where I think it's best. That's not the point here. The point is to liberally sow it, get it out there, you know, let them all have it. The soil will determine what what happens.

32:52 Have you heard that before? You don't have to put your hand up, but you've heard that, right? People talk and there's endless debate about which one of the soils are actually saved. Well this I can tell you for sure, the sower is saved. Okay?

33:10 And the sower has a responsibility. I think that's what the passage is teaching us. And among other things, the sower has a responsibility to sow liberally, to sow generously, and to sow the word. If the sower gets caught up judging the soil, the sower won't sow the word. Don't miss that.

33:33 The word is supposed to be sown. Okay? But I don't know about you, but when I was saved, I didn't stop sinning. I wish I had. The Lord leaves us here and he leaves us with those struggles and and you know what?

33:55 I think the parable of the soils can... Did I say soils? I meant sower. Both. It's both, isn't it?

34:03 Can cause us to reflect. Have I kind of let some weeds start to crowd out my wheat? By by the way, I I apologize to the gluten freeers today. I'm talking about wheat a lot. Have I have I have I let that...

34:22 Those thorns cover me up, drag me down? Have I wandered off into the stones and and am I... Do I feel dry? Do I need some water? Am I starting to look at the edge of that road and see the world passing by and thinking, that looks a lot more fun than the field and growing.

34:49 So I think it's both. I don't think we can... I think we can't eliminate both teachings in this discussion. So let's move on. For the sake of time, I'm not gonna read the next couple portions, but you can read them as we go on in chapter four.

35:05 This will go take us through the end of the passage. It says that next that we should be like a lamp, okay? And and this is the lamp that I imagine was probably available. This is a lamp that burns olive oil, okay? And it may have been a poor man's lamp but it may have been something that just throws off a little bit of light, right?

35:29 We kind of normally imagine one like this, don't we? This is the one that comes up, it's got a whole bunch of candles on it, you carry it around. Either way, what do we know about these lights? They're meant to be covered up by these things. Now I included two things, Most of you probably have not seen a bushel basket.

35:49 That's what's up there in the left. The one that I grew up with that we put apples and pears and and cucumbers in. I don't... Has anybody ever seen one of those? A bushel basket?

36:01 Okay, anybody 20. So okay, very good. So the bushel basket. But you know in those days they probably didn't have them like that. They probably have them something like this, woven baskets about this size and and use those to cover up lamps, right?

36:16 Or if you didn't cover them up with... Cover your lamp up with one of them you put it under your bed. Not. The whole point is you don't do that. Nobody does that.

36:29 So if you do, what are you doing? You're making a deliberate act. A deliberate act because a basket normally sits like this. It's for a different purpose. You got to empty the basket out and put it over top of the lamp.

36:43 It means you're hiding the lamp. You're you're not letting the light shine. What was the purpose of the lamp? It was to shine, not to be covered up. Now we sing that song, everybody growing up said, hide it under a bushel, no, I'm gonna let it shine.

37:05 So what I didn't realize until studying this is that's a deliberate act. One of almost, do I dare say shame? I don't want anybody to see my lamp, that I have a lamp. Oh, that's a bad news thing to do. Don't do that.

37:22 One commentator said, the basket represents work and the bed represents laziness. We can do that through two ways, right? Maybe there's many other ways but I thought that was an interesting point. Here's a warning, there's no secret, Somebody knows you have the lamp. If nobody else, it's the lord knows you have a lamp.

37:44 It will be revealed that you have a lamp and you covered it up. We have a responsibility to be generous, to shine our light. Otherwise, some things will be taken away. Now we get some insights into the kingdom of God. Kingdom of God says that we will have...

38:31 There are people that have studied this all their lives, for generations, and nobody can see how did that thing sprout? How did it know? How does it how does it have the will to do it on its own? When you just add a little bit of water, off it goes, it sprouts, and then it grows. It grains roots and it gets a blade.

38:50 Then finally a head grows, a full grain and eventually a harvest. To the point, here's one seed planted, that's like one seed, the word of the lord in one heart. But what does it look like when you see it normally? It looks like this. A field that you can't see the edge of.

39:12 That's what the kingdom of god looks like. It's like little seeds planted, and they're everywhere. The spread of the gospel, the spread of Christianity cannot be explained by historians. They don't understand how one martyr inspired people to die, people to carry to the far reaches of the earth. It looks like this when you really see it for what it is.

39:38 They're everywhere, we're everywhere. And here's the thing, that seed, and this is a head and a seed, when you get to the head, that's where you get the seed out of. The seed looks the same here as it does here. You could take that seed, add a little bit of water, and it grows a plant. And it becomes 30, 60, and a 100 fold.

40:06 Right? You can take the seed, the same little seed, and you can grind it up. And eventually, you grind enough of them, you can make bread. You can bake a cake. Both the same seed.

40:22 It doesn't make sense that it's on both ends here. But that seed must die to grow more. So that's why planting is an act of faith. You must take that seed out of your mouth per se, and put it in the ground. Otherwise, it'll never grow.

40:40 Says the kingdom of god is like a mustard seed. A mustard seed is one of the smallest seeds and I needed a picture for that. So there it is, know, if you can't see it up on that guy's finger on the top, you can see it right here, look how big his finger is, look how little his, you wouldn't be able to see it if I put it up here now, right? A small little seed And that small seed ends up becoming valuable. You group enough of them together, it becomes a spice.

41:12 Who likes mustard? I don't, okay? I'm I'm learning, I'm testing. Some of the spicy mustards, when I mix it with enough stuff, I kinda like it, it's okay. But it certainly adds a spice.

41:26 But it it's... It becomes bigger than all the other herbs. And we use so many herbs to flavor our food and to make things palatable, to make it different, to just change a little bit. And this one can even be used as a weapon. Have you ever heard of mustard gas?

41:44 Sprayed in people's eyes, it's bad news, it's a bad thing. Okay, it was a commodity traded across the routes, it would have walked all over the known man and known at that time. So again, this is something people would have recognized and understood. Okay? Typically, see it growing like what...

42:04 You see it's pretty big here, right? Where this guy's walking through with his hoe or shovel or whatever that is. You know, it's almost as tall as a man, right? That little bitty seed created a plant this high. That's incredible, a little bitty seed, just a little bit.

42:22 But it also, in some of my study, I could find out, can grow a tree like this up to 20 feet high, 20 feet wide. Grows best in a hot, sandy, arid zone like you see here. So that means it has to put roots down to get water, to be strong, to be a strong tree. One that eventually assists others. The birds end up nesting in there.

42:46 It's one... The kingdom of God's like that. It's mature. It's strong. Okay.

42:53 Let's summarize. What happens when we made the decision to follow Jesus? He asked us to sow the word like a seed from a never ending supply. Don't stop, don't judge, don't worry, just sow. That specific...

43:13 Those parables reveal truth and it fulfills prophecy, confirmation of what Isaiah was told years ago. To prepare the soil like a farmer, I think it's a never ending process. There's... A farmer always has to haul rocks out of his field and has to till the soil and and if you've ever planted a garden and you never hoeed it, you didn't get anything out of it because the weeds didn't get chopped down. Shine your light like a lamp but don't hide it.

43:46 Don't deliberately hide your lamp. Grow like a field, multiply from an unknown source to the world, source of growth, feeding many. Mature like a tree, strong with a very small start, it doesn't take much of a seed to create a big strong tree. Anything is possible and once you've done that you have the opportunity to assist others. Let's pray.

44:53 We pray these things in your son's precious name. Amen.