An Appointment with Christ: The Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13:1) Part 4

As you will remember, those of you who have been in tune with us in the last few programs are taking time to reflect on the parable of the sower because we want our brothers and our friends who listen to us to have the necessary tools to measure themselves according to the Word. of God and determine what kind of soil they are before the seed of the Gospel. We have seen that there are different lands that are equivalent to different types of personality or different types of attitudes that people take before the word of the Gospel, before the message of the word of God, before the teaching that Christ Jesus wants to be their Lord and savior. . Different people receive this Gospel message in sometimes indifferent ways, in enthusiastic but superficial ways, but that is not enough. The Lord wants us to be like a single type of land, which we will see later, that receives the word in the proper way that God desires.

And I want to briefly review the last type of soil that we discussed which is scree, where when the Gospel seed falls there is an enthusiastic reaction at first, but it's a reaction, unfortunately, of little duration. It is a vain enthusiasm, which fades quickly and has no root, and the Bible says that this is the type of person who, when affliction or persecution comes because of the word, quickly stumbles and abandons or turns away from the Gospel.

And I want to tell you my brother, my sister, that the Gospel when we receive it is not necessarily going to bring an easy life. There are people out there who preach that if you follow Christ you will not have problems, that you will be a millionaire, that there will be no diseases in your life, that you will not have difficulties in your family or at work, I want say that unfortunately that is not true. The Lord never preached an easy Gospel. What the Lord promises us when we enter the ways of God is power and grace to resist and to emerge victorious from any test that comes to our life, but the tests will come and in fact many times, the fact that we embrace the The Gospel is going to put us in situations of trial and difficulty, because the devil is going to try, he is going to do everything possible so that if you entered the Gospel that you have trials and difficulties to separate you, because Satan knows that if you receive Christ as your Lord and savior and you remain in the Gospel until the end, you are going to be saved, you are going to have eternal life, you are going to have peace with God, God is going to bring many beautiful things to your life. But before one can sometimes enter into the fullness of God's life, one has to wrestle with the devil or the devil is going to wrestle with one because Satan does not give up his prisoners easily.

There are people who have been following the paths of destruction and vanity all their lives and when they enter the paths of the Lord, that slave owner that is Satan, does not let them out easily. In Scripture we have the story of the Hebrews in Egypt that when Moses was sent by God to bring them out of Egypt from the slavery they had suffered for centuries, Pharaoh, who is a type of Satan, struggled for a long time with God because he did not want to let the people go. Hebrew to the promised land and a pitched battle ensued where God had to send one plague after another upon Egypt until finally Pharaoh let God's people go. And it is the same with the devil, the devil does not easily let go of his prey. The devil, when you receive the Lord Jesus Christ, will do everything possible for you to suffer tests to see if you deny what you have embraced, if you quickly give up and take your hand off the plow and say it was better for me when it was slave of Satan, and you turn away and return again to the things of the world.

Trials will come, but if you stand firm in what you have confessed and keep looking for God, not because of the easy life that He is going to give you, but because God is God, and because without God you are nothing , without God you are worse than an animal because God is your creator, God is your father, God is your lover, God is your friend and without Him you have no meaning. If you receive it like this, then it doesn't matter what may come into your life, you will remain firm in the ways of the Lord and God will give you victory, you will come out of the test and you will enter times of rest, of refreshment, joy, peace and you will have grown in things of the spirit, but if you abandon the Lord at the slightest threat, at the slightest appearance of trials and difficulties, if you stray from the Gospel because things got hard and tight then you are falling into the trap that the devil wants to prepare for you and you are losing the opportunity of eternal life.

The Bible actually says that the Kingdom of Heaven grows strong and the mighty take it by force. Many times we will have to enter the Kingdom of God by force of many sufferings and many sufferings. But the important thing that I want to tell you is that in the midst of all those trials and all those difficulties, the Lord will be with you. In fact, the word of God says that when you are going through trials is when the spirit of God rests on us with greater power.

The Bible also tells us not to be surprised by the fire of tests that can come upon us because many times Christians believe that if we are Christians we should not suffer tests, but we have so many illustrations in scripture that show us that the children of God We can experience difficult situations. In Chapter 11 of the Epistle to the Hebrews, where all those giants of faith recorded in scripture are spoken of, there is talk of a type of hero of faith that the Bible says suffered great tribulations, suffered great difficulties and that in reality many times they did not get to see the things that God had promised them, although they were people of great faith. It says here in a passage that all these died according to faith without having received what was promised, but looking at it from afar and believing and greeting it.

There are people in the Gospel who, even though they have tremendous faith, even though they have tremendous power and great love for the Lord, will not receive the reward that perhaps they deserve. But the important thing is that you remain faithful, that you hold firm to that profession of faith that you made. When you stand firm the Lord comes into your life and takes the test off of you and then you are stronger than when you started the test. Sometimes the believer is going to have to be tested, he says, like gold. But you know that when gold is put into the furnace with all its impurities, there is a process through which that fire, that tremendous heat melts the impurities and separates the fine gold from the other base and impure metals and that purified gold remains. that shines and that has a quality and a flexibility that allows that gold to be formed into beautiful jewels. But when gold is impure, it does not have the same beauty or the same nobility as when it has been purified, and the only way to purify gold is by means of fire, the furnace, the test, and so many times those carnal and sinful aspects. of our personality can only be detached from us through certain sufferings and certain tests that God in a very powerful way, but also very delicate and very wise, is going to carry out, is going to carry out in our life. If God allows you to enter the trial because of the Gospel, don't worry.

The Bible says that you will never be tested beyond what you can withstand. When God allows the test to come into your life, He knows exactly when it will last and what level of test it will be, not to overwhelm you, not to destroy you. So you are looking for God and you are suffering from trials, do not abandon the Gospel, do not be like that seed that falls on stony ground, which, since it has no root, the Gospel disappears soon, but be soil that squeezes the seed, that clings to her until the time of testing has passed and then the time of blessing comes. May the Lord bless you, we will continue on these passages in our next session.