In the sermon 'Demonic Activity In Evangelism' by Peter Allison, the focus is on the parable of the sower from Luke chapter 8, which describes four types of hearts that can receive the Word of God: hard, stony, lustful, and good. Jesus uses parables to convey spiritual truths, revealing mysteries of the Kingdom of God to those chosen to understand, while concealing them from others as an illustration of the doctrine of election. The sermon emphasizes the danger of a hard heart, which can prevent understanding and responsiveness to God's Word, often exacerbated by Satan's interference. Remedies for a hard heart include purposeful understanding, active remembering, meditation on scripture, discussing the Word, and resisting Satan's distractions. The sermon concludes with a prayer for soft hearts, open eyes, and ears, and the strength to resist demonic influences.

Our scripture reading is Luke chapter 8 this morning. I'd like to begin reading at, well we'll be looking at verse 4-15, but I'd like to begin reading at verse 1. Now it came to pass afterward that he went through every city and village preaching and bringing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God, and the twelve were with him, and certain women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary, called Magdalene, out of whom had come seven demons, and Joanna, the wife of Chazza, Herod's steward, and Susanna, and many others who provided for him from their substance. And when a great multitude had gathered, and they had come to him from every city, he spoke by a parable. A sower went out to sow his seed, and as he sowed some fell by the wayside, and it was trampled down, and the birds of the air devoured it, and some fell on rock, and as soon as it sprang up it withered away because it lacked moisture, and some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up with it and choked it, but others fell on good ground, sprang up and yielded a crop a hundredfold.

And when he had said these things, he cried, He who has ears to hear, let him hear. And then his disciples asked him, saying, What does this parable mean? And he said, To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest it is given in parables, that seeing they may not see and hearing they may not understand. Now the parable is this, the seed is the word of God. Those by the wayside are the ones who hear, then the devil comes and takes away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved.

But the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy, and these have no root, who believe for a while and in time of temptation fall away. Now the ones that fell among thorns are those who when they have heard, go out and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of life, and bring no fruit to maturity. But the ones that fell on the good ground are those who having heard the word with a noble and a good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience." May The Lord bless those who hear this word of God and keep it. Almighty Father in heaven, thank you for preserving your word and giving it to us. We do ask for your blessing upon us this morning.

We ask that you would give us an understanding heart and seeing eyes and hearing ears. We ask for your Holy Spirit to accomplish this work in us. In Jesus' name, Amen. Last week we looked at Jesus' model of ministry, how he engaged in this public and private preaching and teaching and how he preached the Kingdom of God, not just a personal salvation that starts and ends with us, but he preached the whole Kingdom of God, and he made this invisible kingdom visible. And how also He took his disciples with him.

He brought them along so that he could train them to do what he was doing, which is going around and preaching the gospel of the kingdom. In fact, a little later we'll see him sending them out on their own to give trial of their preaching. And so we now come, well we saw also the prominence of women in his ministry, both in accompanying him, in being present with him, and also in supporting him. These women were supporting Jesus from their own substance. And so Luke then moves from this introduction of this ministry of Jesus to give to us another sermon that Jesus gave.

Except this sermon is in the form of a parable. A parable is a word that means, you probably recognize the para-preface to the word, means alongside. The Holy Spirit is sometimes called the paraclete, someone who, a comforter who comes alongside, an advocate who comes alongside, and so this word is alongside. But the second part of that word parabola is the word for casting casting out that word if it's prefaced with ec Which is the exit going out means to excommunicate or to cast something out cast the devil out Or something of that sort, but this case it means to cast alongside So Jesus spoke in a parable casting alongside, meaning truth is put in juxtaposition. An earthly story is juxtaposed, put alongside of, cast alongside, a heavenly story.

Or so we have an earthly story about something that's common, something that we see and experience daily and ordinarily. We have that put alongside or used to explain a heavenly story with a heavenly meaning. So these two things in this earthly story and this heavenly story are cast alongside of each other. And so this is what Jesus used many times in his preaching and teaching. He spoke in parables to illustrate his spiritual message, his heavenly message, to illustrate it with common and ordinary experiences.

And so he would put these two together. It is here to reveal a mystery. A mystery. A mystery in the Bible is a truth that we wouldn't know unless God revealed it. We wouldn't really know anything unless God reveals it to us.

But the word mystery is used to speak about the truths of the gospel. Paul talks about the mystery kept from the beginning of the foundation of the earth, about the fact that God would bring Gentiles into the Jewish church. That's a truth that Paul called the mystery. So Jesus says here that he spoke in parables to reveal a mystery, something that wouldn't be known unless God spoke them to us. Jesus also used parables to confound and silence his enemies.

He told the parable of the Good Samaritan to be able to make a Pharisee answer his own question and silence him in doing so. He looked foolish in doing so because Jesus told a little simple story, a parable, and it made it obvious what the answer to the Pharisees question was. And so he used parables then to silence his enemies. He also spoke in parables so that what was Spoken in Psalm 78 would be fulfilled Psalm 78 said that that he would speak in dark sayings or parables He would speak in parables dark sayings of old and so Jesus Many as many times we read in the scriptures, He did what He did so that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of Him. And so this is one more example.

Jesus spoke in parables that what was said in Psalm 78 of him would be fulfilled. He spoke in parables also to speak to us today. These parables were not about a specific person, a historical person who lived in a certain year of a certain king or in a certain country who had a certain name and so on. That would be a specific person. But Jesus gave parables, they were non-specific people, it was just a man, a man or a woman or what the case might be.

So these parables are speaking in ways that are applicable to us today, speaking of us today. But there's an interesting twist in these parables as well, especially in this one. We can say this with confidence because this is one of the parables that Jesus himself explains. He gives to us the meaning of the parable. And there's an interesting twist here.

This is an earthly story not to illustrate a heavenly truth, but it's also an earthly story to conceal the heavenly truth. Jesus talked in parables here to the people so that what had been decreed from before the foundation of the world regarding these people would be fulfilled. In other words, we see being illustrated here the doctrine of election. Those to whom it was not given to understand would not understand. The disciples asked him, well what does this parable mean?

They realized Jesus was telling a story using earthly examples to illustrate heavenly truths, but they weren't able to understand what is the heavenly truth that's being illustrated here. Sometimes it's easy to see what the illustration is. Like the parable he spoke earlier in chapter 6 about building on a rock and not on the sand. So when the storm comes, the building doesn't fall down. Well, that one's pretty easy.

But what is this farmer sowing seed in the field and some of it getting wasted and falling in different places, what does that have to do with with a heavenly truth? Now we've probably heard this story so many times, this parable so many times, and the explanation of it that you might have jumped right over that fact. That it isn't obvious, unless Jesus had explained it, it wouldn't be obvious what the heavenly truth being illustrated was. What does sowing seed, what does a farmer sowing sorghum or corn or beans or rice, What does that, his sowing that seed, his casting it into the field, what does that have to do with the heavenly truth? So Jesus said he was telling this parable that was not easy to understand all by itself so that those to whom it had not been given to understand would not understand.

To you, he said, to you it's been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest it hasn't been given to know these mysteries. And so he speaks, he says, I spoke in parables that seeing they may not see and hearing they may not understand. Jesus is describing here the first type of heart on which the seed falls. There are four types of hearts that Jesus says the seed can fall on. It can fall on the hard heart.

It can fall on the stony heart. It can fall on the lustful heart, and it can fall on a good heart. We'd like this morning, in our remaining time, to look at this hard heart that Jesus talks about. Because it is a heart that describes these Pharisees, but it can also be a heart that describes us as well. Luke gives a very abbreviated explanation.

Matthew, the gospel that was written to Jews by a Jew, by Matthew the tax collector, goes into this point in much greater detail. He spends a lot more time talking about this Because he's writing to people whose hearts had been hardened, whose hearts were hardened. This gospel, Luke, written to Theophilus, who probably was a Jew himself, but a converted Jew, Luke doesn't spend near as much time. Theophilus, the most excellent Theophilus, probably was a Sadducee who had been appointed by the Romans as a high priest but had been converted. And so Luke doesn't spend a lot of time talking about the hardness of the heart here, because he has his audience in mind.

The most excellent theophilist, somebody who is a recipient of God's grace, somebody whom the Lord had saved, who used to have a hard heart, but not anymore. Luke was writing to him to give him further explanation and orderly account of all that Jesus did. So he just briefly refers to this. But if we look in Matthew, Matthew quotes extensively from Isaiah. In Matthew's, he writes, therefore I, Jesus says in Matthew, I speak to them in parables because seeing they do not see and hearing they do not hear nor do they understand.

They have a hard heart and that's why I'm speaking to them in parables. He says, And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says, Hearing you will hear and shall not understand, and seeing you will see and not perceive. For the heart of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, so that I should heal. But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and for your ears for they hear." Now when you read that, it sounds like Jesus is speaking in parables because their hearts were already hard.

They chose to harden their hearts their their ears are hard of hearing they have closed their eyes it says they closed their eyes in other words they harden their hearts and so because they have hardened their hearts, because they have closed their eyes, then I am speaking in parables. The text also adds another factor in here, and that is that Satan comes. The reason they don't hear is because Satan comes and snatches the word away. So their heart is hard. The soil is described as a packed ground, like a path that you've walked on, and the ground is hard pressed from being walked on over and over and over again.

You know, if you've ever seen an area of grass, a strip of grass, that is a shorter distance than what the sidewalk, paved sidewalk is, you know, people may start walking across the grass. And what happens? People walk across the grass and someone else walks across and eventually enough people walk on the grass, The ground gets so hard that the grass stops growing there. Where there was grass, there no longer is grass. That's the picture that's being given here of a hardened heart.

The seed can't grow in that ground. It can't sink into the ground. And Satan comes and snatches it away. Now Luke on the other hand seems to imply a little differently. He says to you it has been given to know but to the rest it is given in parables so that, seeing they may not see and hearing they may not understand.

Luke seems to be saying the parables are spoken So that people can't understand. It's to prevent them from understanding. It's not because their heart was hard and they can't understand, but these parables are, Jesus is speaking in a parable, So that they won't understand. Now which is it? Which is it?

Whose fault is this? Should we lay the blame at the feet of the Jews? Are they the ones that have hardened their heart? Or is this God hardening their heart? Or is this Satan coming along and snatching it away?

I think you realize That all of these are true and they are all true simultaneously. They are all true simultaneously. The people have hardened their own heart. This fault is the people's. They hear but they don't understand.

They have hardened their heart like a path that has been walked on again and again until the soil is so hard that nothing grows there. That is what the Jews have done. And all those who do not believe, who have hard hearts, it is because they have hardened their hearts. But it is also true, it is also true that these hard hearts are because God has not given the ability to understand. That's what election is.

God choosing, God electing, before the foundation of the world, those on whom He will show His mercy and grace, and those whom He will not. And so it's rightly said that we can rightly say that God hardened their heart, just like Pharaoh says that Pharaoh hardened his heart, but it also says that God hardened Pharaoh's heart. Or the example given in Acts 2 as Peter is preaching to these same people. He says in one sentence, in one verse that Jesus Christ was crucified because of their wicked acts. You wicked people, You did this.

But it was also at the exact same time, their wicked act done by out of the hardness of their heart was also by the foreordination and decree of God. And so both of these things we have to see as being true. They are both true at the same time. The mere fact that God has decreed something, that God has decreed from before the foundation of the world who he will be merciful to, does not absolve anyone of their responsibility in hardening their own heart. And so God's sentence of condemnation is always just.

It is always the result of our sinfulness and hard hearts. But it is also true that Satan is at work here. It is Satan, the devil, who comes and snatches the seed out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved. Satan comes along and takes that seed Before it can permeate into the ground. Now the ground is hard so it can't.

But Satan comes and he takes it away lest, you see that? Lest, because if he didn't take it away, they might believe and be saved. Lest they should believe and be saved. And So Satan is definitely at work. Satan is ever on the lookout how he can prevent the Word of God from being heard.

He can send distracting thoughts to our minds. He can put something more interesting into our thinking. And even during the preaching of the Word, and even during our times where we are reading the Word, How often our thoughts can wander away. Satan can put us a distracting thought there so that the word is heard without profit, or we read the word without profit. We read it, but our mind is elsewhere.

Satan is ever on the lookout, how he can prevent the Word of God from bearing fruit. Bearing fruit, and He is ever watchful to come and snatch that seed away. Hard hearts, though, can afflict even Christ's disciples. We can at times suffer from a heart that has been hardened. In Mark 8, Jesus told them, take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.

And they are reasoning among themselves, thinking, well, they think it's because they have no bread. But Jesus, being aware of their confusion, says, why are you thinking about not having any bread? Don't you perceive, don't you understand? Is your heart still hardened? Having eyes, do you not see?

Having ears, do you not hear? And do you not remember? And so this is what a hard heart is. A hard heart is a failure due to lack of understanding. It's a failure to see.

Not recognizing the finger of God upon our life or in the world? If we look out, do we see God's handiwork around us? Do we see God at work in the ordinary things that happen in our life? Are we thinking about that? Do we see God's handiwork in creation?

When we look at the stars, do we see God's glory? The heavens declare the glory of God. When we look at these things, do we see the finger of God in them? Do we see God's providence in our life? A hard heart is not seeing these things as God works in us.

Not recognizing what's happening in front of us for what it is. It is not hearing as well. Hard heart is not understanding, It's not seeing, and it's not hearing. Not hearing what God is saying to us. We listen, but we're like comatose, in the sense that it doesn't produce a response in us.

It doesn't produce a change. We're not transformed by what we've heard. See, we're not hearing. We don't listen to know what to do, to learn what to do. We don't listen in order to be changed, in order to grow.

We're just listening passively. So that's not hearing. Not hearing. And that's a description of a hard heart. Not seeing and not hearing.

Not hearing God's voice. He's calling us to do something, He's calling us to follow Him, He's calling us to walk in obedience to Him, He's giving, He's speaking to us His words of life, His commandments, but we're not hearing. There's not a change being produced in our life. We're not becoming more conformed to His image and less conformed to this world. We're not, it's not resulting in the mortification of sin.

When those things are happening, we're not hearing. We're not hearing. And those are characteristics of a hard heart. And you can see we all wrestle with these effects of a hard heart. We all at times don't see what God is doing.

We all at times don't Listen to God's voice. A hard heart is also not remembering. Jesus said, don't you remember? Don't you remember? Do you not remember what I have done?" See too, a hard heart doesn't remember.

It has no remembrance of God's prior works, of His prior speaking. The disciples had seen Jesus work many miracles, but they didn't effectively remember them. God's works are on display all around us all the time. Works that demonstrate His power, works that demonstrate His wisdom, works that demonstrate His goodness, His mercy. We've never lacked bread, but we might still worry that we'll lack it.

This is not remembering. Just like the Israelites, as they went through the wilderness for 40 years, they never lacked bread. Their shoes didn't wear out. They saw these things but they didn't remember what God had done in the times that they fell away. So that's the fourth sign of a hard heart, then, is not remembering.

Not remembering what God has done. Not remembering what we've seen, not remembering what we have heard. And then another fifth characteristic of a hard heart is sin. Sin gives a legal foothold for Satan to move in and set up shop, take up residence. Sin gives a legal foothold for Satan.

So what is the remedy for a hard heart? Well a hard heart is where the seed as it's cast gets taken away before it can sprout, before it can show a sign of life. It's forgotten before there is comprehension. Well, here are five remedies for a hard heart. The first is to purpose, to purpose to understand.

The sign of a hard heart is not understanding, being dull and senseless. So the remedy for a hard heart is to purpose, to understand. Ezra 7.10 said, Ezra prepared his heart to seek the law of God and to do it and to teach statutes and ordinances in Israel. It takes a purpose and it takes a preparation. Purpose to understand and having purpose to understand then prepare yourself to understand.

When you know that you're going to be coming into the house of God, when you know that you're going to be sitting down to read the word of God, purpose to understand it, and then prepare your heart, recognize that you need the power of the Holy Spirit to understand spiritual things, ask for the Holy Spirit to open your eyes, ask for the Holy Spirit to open your eyes. Ask for the Holy Spirit to give you understanding. Secondly, remember. Bring the Word of God to mind. If we don't actively remember things then we forget them.

We are prone to forget them. The work of remembering is to bring it to mind and to go over it and over it. It's Exactly what you don't want to do with other's sin. Jesus, or God, forgives our sin. He doesn't remember our transgressions.

When we forgive somebody, we are saying we are not going to remember it. It doesn't mean we forget it. You can't forget something, but you cannot remember it. And that's there's a big difference. To not remember something is to not bring it to your mind, to not play it over and over in your mind again and again.

To remember something is to bring it to mind and to play it over in our mind again and again. So we're not to remember the sins against us just as God does not remember our sins, but we are to remember God's Word and His works and His providence and His mercy and His grace. That means we need to bring it to our mind, and we need to think about it, to actively bring it to our mind. See, when we forget God's blessings, we forget His kindness, when we forget His goodness, when we forget His wonderful works in our life, then we become unmindful of God's goodness. We are not able to be thankful for it.

Now the third remedy for a hard heart is to meditate on the Word of God. That means to recall it to our mind and to just think about it, to think about it over and over again. To let it sit in our mind. Meditation has been co-opted by Eastern religions. We might think, well, we shouldn't, that's wrong, but the Bible speaks often of meditating on the Word of God, meditating on the acts of God, meditating on the grace of God, thinking about these things.

As we think about them, they become entrenched in our mind, and we become more and more grateful, and more and more responsive to the work of the Holy Spirit. See, just like meditating and thinking and remembering people's sins can make bitterness, produces bitterness, produces anger, produces resentment. When we meditate on the things we should meditate on, when we meditate on God's mercy, and on His love to us, and on His kindness in our life, and on the richness of His blessing, and all of the ways that He blesses us, When we begin to think about and count our blessings, then our heart is enlarged and we become more grateful for them. We become drawn more and more to our Savior Jesus Christ and to His beauty. We desire more and more to be like Him.

But also, fourthly, the remedy of a hard heart is to speak the Word. It's to speak the Word. It's to discuss the things that have been heard in the sermon. It's to talk about what you've read about in the Word of God with others. It's to speak about it.

Because as you speak about it, it further instructs us. I had a teacher in a physics class once and he, in his introduction, you know, teachers introduced themselves to first class. He talked about his training is To be in front of us teaching this physics class. He talked about how You know, he went through undergraduate school and then he went through graduate school, you're learning and learning the physics over and over again. But he said he didn't really learn it until he taught it.

And it was after the first year of teaching it that he really then felt like, wow, now I'm beginning to understand this. See what was happening, he was talking about it. He was having to organize the thoughts in his mind and then express them. And when we do that, we see new insights. We learn new things ourselves.

That's why I think God gives children to parents to teach so that we as the parents can learn because it's in speaking. It's in speaking the Word of God that we learn more and we grow more. And so it is appropriate to discuss what was in the sermon, to discuss what was in the message. Maybe the message was poorly given and hard to understand, but it will help to clarify what was being said or what was trying to be said. If it was well presented message then discussing it will bring further thoughts to mind.

Your mind will begin to add to what has been said, and your mind will begin to make more connections to what has been said. And it will enlarge your heart and warm your heart to the things of the Lord. But also, we should not forget, when we look at remedies of a hard heart, we shouldn't forget that Satan is Seeking every opportunity To steal away the word of God and so we need to then resist Satan If we're not actively resisting him then he's can be running rampant over us But we have this promise that as we resist Satan, he will flee. And so we need to be actively resisting Satan. We need to be actively aware of his schemes so that we don't fall prey to them.

We don't want to be ignorant that he is looking. To take advantage of every sin, to take advantage of every aspect or hardness of our heart, to snatch that word away so that we do not benefit from it. Resisting Satan might mean that we do like Jesus did. To say out loud, get behind me, Satan. That's what Jesus did.

That's how he resisted Satan, as Satan was seeking to tempt him, through Peter nonetheless. Jesus said out loud, get behind me, Satan. That should be our example. Say it out loud. Get behind me, Satan.

When thoughts may just pop into your mind as You are trying to study the Word of God and your mind is distracted. You are having a hard time to concentrate, to remember what God has done. Every time you want to remember what God has done, your thoughts are going somewhere else. Remember to resist Satan. To recognize that this is a battle.

We're in a warfare And we've been given armor and we've been given tools to resist Satan Christ has defeated Satan. He's not a foe that we have to fear but he is a mighty foe and we cannot defeat him on our own. We can't resist him in our own human strength. And that's the time to recognize this may be Satan's work, This may be demonic work attacking me. And to pray for Satan's defeat, to pray that, to take authority that Jesus has given us in His name to cast Satan out.

Remembering always that our sin, our sin can give a legal foothold to Satan. So we can't expect Satan to be cast out if we are giving him a legal foothold in our life for him to be present. Hearts don't become hard overnight. It doesn't happen instantly. A hard heart is a gradual thing.

Little by little, bit by bit, as we don't remember and don't understand and forget to look for God's handiwork. We forget to see His finger. We don't hear what He says. We're careless in our hearing. It's not something that's all or nothing.

It can be a gradual thing. It usually is a gradual matter. And so we need to be diligent. Even as the redeemed of the Lord, we need to be diligent. Each and every day.

And throughout each and every day. That we are purposing to understand. That we are remembering the Word of God bringing it to our mind that we're meditating on the scriptures that we're that we're studying them and that we're speaking the truth, speaking the things that God has brought to our minds, speaking His Word, and that we are regularly, diligently, watchful, We are called to be watchful of Satan, that he not come in and snatch the word as it is sown. May God give to us a heart that is soft, a heart that remembers, eyes that see, ears that hear, and His Holy Spirit, the power of His Spirit to resist Satan. Let us pray.

Let us pray. Our Heavenly Father, we acknowledge how all too often our heart has been hard at the hearing of your word. And that which has been sown is snatched away before we have even heard it, before it has penetrated the soil of our heart. Know how often, how far too often this happens. But we thank you and rejoice that we are your people.

We rejoice that you have given to us your Spirit, that you have made us to sit with you in the heavenlies, that you as our friend and elder brother speak to us, revealing the mysteries of the faith, the mysteries of your Word, the mysteries of salvation. So we ask, Lord, that you would help our unbelief. We ask that you might renew our zeal for you today, our longing to know more of you, to drink more deeply of your Word, to walk more closely with you. Father, may our treasure be with you in heaven and not here on earth. But may we conduct ourselves with fear and trembling here on earth.

Knowing that all that we do does matter, count for eternity. And so Father, we bless your name this morning, that you love us, that you are merciful to us, that you forgive our iniquity, that you have taken away our stony heart, our hard heart, and given to us to know the mysteries of your kingdom. Oh Lord, we thank you for there is nothing in us that makes us worthy, nothing in us that obligated you in any way To reveal these things to us Lord it is of your grace and we praise your mercy we praise that grace in Jesus name in Jesus name. Amen.