Greetings friends and new listeners and welcome to The Sound of Faith. I'm Sharon Knotts thanking you for joining us on today's program because we know that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Today's message, the parable of the seed, holds a little-known truth that is a game-changer for gospel evangelism. In the seminal parable of the sower, Jesus clearly stated that the seed is the word of God. But in the subsequent parable of the tares, he said the seed is something else.
Find out what. in the parable of the seed.
So here's the thing about it. I want you to see: the good seed are the children of the kingdom.
Now, if you plant corn, you're going to get If you plant tomatoes, you're going to get... If you're a breeder and you breed horses, you're gonna get If you're a dog breeder, you're going to get... If you like sheep, you're going to get... And so on. And if you're human, you're going to produce humans.
And if you are a Christian, I said, if you are a child of God, if you are a Christian, you should be producing. Christians. Because you've got the seed in you. The children of the kingdom have this. In the You see the Greek word is sperma.
And sperma not only means the original seed, but it also refers to the fruit that it produces. And that fruit has seed in it. And that fruit has seed in it. Amen? And it will continue to produce if you continue to plant that seed.
So the original seed was the word of God that came from God. It fell into our hearts. I'm talking about the fourth ground now. It fell into our good and honest hearts. That incorruptible seed.
We were born again. We became a child of the kingdom. And not only are we a Christian and a child of God. But now we have the ability to reproduce Christians. Amen.
That original seed was the message of the kingdom. and it produced messengers of the kingdom. Because now they had the Word of God in them. Turn with me to John 17.
Now, this records when Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane. And this was when he was agonizing right before going to the cross. And we know that he was battling with his own self-will, but he was winning the victory. Amen? Drop down to verse 14.
He prayed for his disciples that God would keep them. But look at verse 14. I have given them that would be his disciples thy word, and the world hath hated them because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world. But that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.
They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through thy truth. Thy word is truth. Why didn't he want God to take them out of the world? Verse 18: As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them in the world.
And for their sakes I sanctify myself that they might also be sanctified through the truth.
Now, look at verse 20: Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through. Whose word? Their word. The messengers. The disciples, the children of God, the Christians that were born again of the incorruptible seed.
Jesus said, I am praying for them. But I am praying for the generations and generations of Christians that will come to the faith because of their word. He didn't say because of your word, Father, or my word, but because of their word, because their word. Is his word and their word? is God's word.
Amen. And you and I have the same Seed of that word is And people should come to Faith in Jesus Christ. Because of My word and your word. Amen. Isn't that powerful?
That is powerful. We're talking about the fourth ground who are going to bring forth Some thirty, some sixty, and some a hundredfold. Our words, our message of the kingdom.
Now we're talking about the gospel message now. The message of salvation. I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the power of God unto salvation unto everyone that believes. It carries within itself.
Inherent is the gospel, is the power. to do what it says. You preach the message, but then the power is in there to back it up, to demonstrate it.
So some are going to bring forth 30, 60, and 100 fold of souls. I know everybody gets their wallets out. They're thinking money, money, money. Amen. That's what they're thinking.
But He's talking about souls.
Now, people like Apostle Paul. And Peter and the other disciples, They're probably going to be in the hundredfold club. People like Billy Graham. You'll probably be in the Hundredfold Club. And there's been many great ministers and evangelists, especially, through the generations, amen, that have brought thousands and thousands of people to Christ.
But they didn't do it by themselves, folks. They didn't do it by themselves. They had to have lots of supporters, prayer warriors, team members, financial supporters. Amen. And because of this, they were able to reach so many souls.
Because the thing about sowing and reaping is that God has built into it an exponential factor. You Always get what you plant. We already said if you plant corn, you get corn. You're going to get what you plant.
So, if you want watermelon, you better get out there and plant watermelon seeds. Amen. So number one, you get what you plan. Number two. You always get more.
Then you plant. You put a couple seeds in the ground. But then you get this big stalk of coming up. and on that stalk is many ears of corn. If it's in good ground.
And Maryland has very good ground for growing corn. Amen, and tomatoes and such. Amen. So, you're going to get what you plant, you're going to get more than you plant. And you're going to get it later than you planted because there is a season between planting and harvest.
And people sometimes get discouraged in that middle waiting period. And I'm talking spiritually now. Amen? I read a long time ago that there was a couple of women back in the 19 I think it was the late 1940s. And they were praying for revival to come to Los Angeles.
And they had been praying for a long time, I think it was a couple years, and someone put up a tent there. in Los Angeles. And then they ask this pretty much unknown young preacher to come and preach. And he did. And the place was set on fire.
And so what was only supposed to last a couple of weeks lasted. that summer and that young unknown preacher was no one else than Billy Graham. Amen. And of course after that You know, um My understanding is when that took off in LA like it did. Uh Randolph Hearst.
Who was the founder and the head of the Hearst newspaper chains? which blanketed the country. And many uh big newspapers were part of that network. I know today people don't read the newspaper. They get their stuff on TV, but I still get a newspaper to come to my house.
I like to read my own newspaper. I like to do my crosswords. Amen. I remember when I was a kid growing up on Wayne Street. And my mother and father used to make a race for the newspaper to see who was going to get to do the crosswords.
And I got hooked on them too, so once in a while I would do it. Oh my goodness, did I get in big trouble when I would sneak and get the paper first and do those crosswords? And we're all still doing them to this day. It's something very good to develop. It will develop your knowledge and your vocabulary.
Okay, that was your free thing for today. Amen. So these women they prayed, and this great revival came, and then this Randolph Hearst, when the But when the revival broke out like it did, he sent a telegram. To all of that Editors. of his newspaper chain.
And it was two words. Puff. P UFF. Puff Graham. In other words, he was saying, I want this man to make news.
I want you to. dedicate a huge part of the n of The newspaper, I want you to write about him. I want you to write about this revival. That was back in the days when people weren't politically correct. They were God-minded.
And even if they weren't really saved and born again, they respected the word of God. He said, Puff Graham. And so that's what they did. And the rest is history. Amen.
Because it was God that put it in that man's heart. Because God said that He will cause your gift to make room for you and bring you before great men. And he will open doors that no one can open. And amen. And so that's what God did.
And then I found out that there was this one lady in particular. She followed Billy Graham's tent revivals around. Wherever he went, she traveled there, and she would get a hotel room. And during the whole revival, she stayed in the hotel room and prayed. She never went to one meeting.
She never attended one service. She just stayed in the hotel rooms and prayed. My God, that, don't you think that she's going to bring forth? Yeah, yeah, some seed in the kingdom?
So, of course, he's out there, and you know, we give honor to him because he's a man, the caliber of minister that Billy Graham is, is someone to be honored. Amen. Because he had one message. He didn't get into doctrine. He didn't do any of that.
He preached. The evangelistic message of the gospel. He preached salvation, which meant he preached heaven. And hell. You want to go look at some of his old black and white films, and his hair is a flinging in the air.
He had that real pretty hair and it was flinging in the air and he's got that finger out. And he's telling you about hell. And his son Franklin, I think he might be bolder. Because he not he gets on the issues. His dad stayed away from the issues 'cause he didn't want to be seen as political.
But Franklin Graham He says it's time they use plainness of speech. He'll talk about same-sex marriage and those sort of things. Amen. The sin. He'll name it.
And so these people are going to bring forth much in the kingdom. And they had the message, they had the seed, they had the word. And you and I also have the message. We have the seed, we have the word. But you need something else.
You have to have something else. After you get the seed, you have to have something else. You see, the scripture says in Acts 10:38, and you know this as soon as I quote it, and God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power, who went about. doing good, healing all. That were oppressed of the devil.
And that takes in all oppression, mental, physical, emotional. Etc., as well as spiritual. Amen? But he did not begin his public ministry until he was first anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power. And the Bible says, then he went out with the might and the power of the Spirit.
So, you have to have the anointing and you have to have the authority. If you're called to ministry, then you study and you get the Word of God in you. There is no substitute for this word of God. Amen. I like to tell stories because it helps people to remember.
But if that's all you got, is one story hooked up to another story, then that's not enough. You need the word of God. You've got to get this seed into their hearts. You've got to sow the seed.
Now you're going to have some fall on the first ground, and the second ground, and the third ground. It's not up to you to worry about that. You have to sow the seed. Amen. And so Jesus recognized that they had the word because he had.
Personally, they trained them for three and a half years, but they needed something else beside that. They had to have what he had, they had to have that anointing.
Now, here's the verse we all know well. I'm going to quote it. You don't have to turn there because Brother Hardy has preached this throughout the years, and so we have it all in our spirit. 2 Peter 1:4, whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature. Being partakers of the divine nature is not the promise.
It's the fulfillment of the promise. Amen. He's given it to us that by these, by their fulfillment, we may be partakers of the divine nature.
Now what are these promises? What Jesus said, the works that I do, shall you do also. And greater works than these shall you do in my name, which means in my authority. There's the authority. Oh, you got the authority.
You got the seed, you got the word.
Now we got the authority. That was John 14:12. Greater works than these shall you do in my name. He said, In my name, you're going to cast out devils. In my name, you're going to heal the sick.
In my name, you'll cleanse lepers. Amen. In my name, you'll tread on the serpents, the scorpions, and you'll have power, you'll have authority over all the power of the enemy because I give you this authority.
So you have to have the word, the seed, and you have to have the authority, but you also have to have the anointing. Amen. And so it's by the divine nature of God that we're able to do the works of God. The divine nature. Do you know what that would be in modern Language today.
Your D N A Your DNA. You see, see, Jesus was the Word of God made flesh, but we're told in Philippians' second chapter that He laid aside His deity. He laid it all aside. And he took upon himself humanity. He was made in the image and likeness of men, and his nature, he took upon completely the nature of a human.
Because he was going to depend on the Holy Ghost. He was going to depend on the anointing. And if he depended on the anointing and the power of the Holy Spirit to do what he did, that means that we are saved. Can depend and Must depend on the Spirit of God and the anointing to do the works that He did. Otherwise, how How could he tell us?
Well, go do what I did. If he didn't act the same way we must act. As a human, dependent on the Holy Spirit. Amen. He laid all this, that aside.
And so therefore, we have also Because we just read it, we've got the incorruptible seed, it's in us, it remains in us. We have the divine nature of God, the DNA of God. And you know that DNA now has really become very important. Yeah, yeah. It's very extremely important even in the criminal justice system.
Guilty people are found to be innocent. Innocent people that they think are innocent are found to be guilty, all because of DNA. Amen. And now. They're fine-tuning treatments for people's sicknesses based on their DNA.
Everybody doesn't get one size fits all. You know, like for cancer treatment, the chemotherapy, they fine-tune it, they tweak it according to a person's DNA. They have to go and get blood tests, and then the tests tell them whether or not it's working on the cancer cells. If it's not working on the cancer cells, They have to change it. Until they find say it might have worked on this person, but it's not working on the other person.
So they have to change it according to that person's DNA. The day is coming, they claim that much of your treatment will not be that the pharmacist will pull one bottle off the shelf and give it to everybody with the same condition. Because it's going to be according to your DNA. Because your DNA is who you are. And your DNA is not only who you are, but your DNA is who you're going to be.
Amen. It's, you know, it's a big long word. It is, let me find it here. I wrote it down in my notes. It's deoxyribonucleic acid.
I have found my own way of describing it. in the spirit. DNA.
Okay, it stands for the divine nature. Amen. God's DNA. But let me give you the Greek words. This is now look this is Sharon, okay, book of Sharon.
D Dunamis. What does that mean? It not only means power, it means inherent power to reproduce yourself. It's like a dynamo. It reproduces itself.
Amen? N nikos. Victory! Yeah. Victory and A.
Agathas. Don't know. Don't know?
Alright. I'm going to give you a chance to think about it. I'm going to go back to Acts 10:38. And God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power. There's your dunamis.
who went about doing Yeah. The Greek word for good is agathus. There's your Agathis. There's your A. Healing Oh.
That were oppressed of the devil. If you Meet every devil you can meet, every demon you can meet, every sickness, every blind eye, everything, and you heal them all. I say you You are victorious. Yes. And there is your knee cos.
So our DNA means that we have the power to reproduce, that we can go about and do good. like Jesus did, and have the victory. Because we have the seed of his word, his nature in us too. We have his divine attributes. Amen.
We have it, but we need something to trigger it. If you wanted to go medical, you could talk a whole lot of things, but I'm not going to go there because we'll get hung up. But you need something to trigger it. I'll just make this one statement. I uh my understanding is that we all have cancer cells in our bodies from time to time.
But why do some succumb to it and others do not?
Something triggers that cell to. Begin to multiply and get out of hand and multiply and multiply.
Something triggers it. It could be an exposure to a chemical, it could be exposure to foods, it could be an exposure to many things, and sometimes it can even be a A genetic code in the family.
So, something triggers it where other people go their whole lifetime and never get the cancer. Amen. That's just, I just want you to see that something has to trigger it to reproduce itself. That's a negative thing. We don't like to talk about that.
It's bad stuff. But now we're talking about the Spirit. And we need something to trigger this word of God. We need something to trigger this, that we have this. And that's what Jesus said.
He knew they had the seed in them, but they needed something else. Turn to Luke 24, 49. This is after the resurrection. And behold, I send the promise of my father upon you. But tarry.
Let's make it English today. And behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you, but tarry. Or wait. You in the city of Jerusalem. Until.
Somebody say until. Until you be endued with power from on high. You see, they had That seed in them, they had that nature in them, they had the ability in them to reproduce children for the kingdom, but they needed something to trigger it. They needed the same thing that he had. The Holy Ghost and power.
And so he said I'm going back to the Father, but I promise you He's going to send the Holy Spirit. He had already told them all about that in John 14, 15, and 16 before the cross.
So he says, I promise you he's going to come. But you need to go to Jerusalem and you need to wait there until he comes.
Well, how will we know when he comes? Oh, you will know. You will know. He's not gonna come knocking. on the door.
He's going to blow the house wide open. He's going to come in like the mighty wind. Rushing win. He's doing a Come in like balls. Of fire.
You will know it well. he gets there. You just got to wait. Wait! and tarry until he gets there.
Amen. And so that's what he told them. And you know, they started off, the Bible says 500 of them went in that upper room. But as the days clicked off, and the days clicked off, some people got tired and got weary and well-doing, and they began to go home. And that number began to go down until finally there was only 120.
That were still there. Amen. But Jesus kept his promise. The Father kept his promise because on the day of Pentecost, The Holy Ghost showed up. Hallelujah.
And that house began to shake. Amen. And that the walls began to tremble, and the glory of God came down, and the balls of fire that were in the form of cloven tongues sat over each of them. That's 120 triggers. Said over each of them.
Not just one big fire that came down, that would have been great. But over each of them, cloven means it was split in two, at least two, maybe more, because they got more than one tongue. Amen. And so it's The Holy Ghost came down. And sat upon each one of them.
And they were all fit. Filled with the Holy Ghost. Amen. What a revelatory teaching on the parable of the seed. Most Christians are more familiar with the parable of the sower, which describes the four grounds that received the seed of the word of God and how each responded to it.
The determiner of whether it bore good fruit was the condition of the soil or men's hearts. But in his subsequent parable of the tares, Jesus did not say the seed is the word of God, but rather the seed is the children of the kingdom. That is, Christians who are born again of the incorruptible seed of God's Word. We become the seed. If you plant corn, you'll harvest corn.
If you plant tomatoes, you'll harvest tomatoes. If you breed cows, you'll produce cows. If you breed dogs, you'll produce dogs. And human beings produce human beings because God said in the Genesis creation account, every seed after its own kind, and every living thing has the seed to reproduce within itself.
So Christians should produce Christians. And if they don't, they are spiritually sterile. You need this message, the parable of the seed in your spiritual library. Order today on CD for a love gift of $10 or more for the radio ministry. Request SK186.
That's SK186. Mail to Sound the Faith, P.O. Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland, 21203, or go online at Soundthefaith.org. where you can order on MP3. But to order by mail, send your minimum love gift for the Radio Ministry of $10 to P.O.
Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland 21203, request SK186. Until next time, this is Sharon Knott singing. Maranatha.
