Chapter 10 of Matthew, as we look there, makes it very clear that this is an hour in which we identify with Christ, and will be hated for His name’s sake.  There is a narrow path that we are admonished to walk, and He distinguishes between the good trees and the evil trees:  He said that the good trees are easily identified because they bring forth good fruit, praise God!  We know that the Scripture calls good fruit that fruit that remains; amen?  He has called us, He has ordained us, so that we would go and bring forth fruit, and our fruit shall remain:  it will be constant; it will become generational.  I thank God, as I look and see my daughter and my granddaughters continuing to grow in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord.  They are such precious treasures to me.  I remember teaching my children, “Don’t ever make me choose.  If you rise up in a rebellious heart, if you begin to contend with the kingdom of God, I have already chosen: I will not love you more than I love Jesus, because no man who loves his daughter, his wife, houses, lands, or his own life, more than Jesus is worthy to be called His child.”

Now, we are living in an hour in which we are being seduced.  Jesus makes it very clear that men are becoming lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, and that is what the church will fight.  As He taught the Sermon on the Mount, He said that, as the church continues to go through these things in the last days, you will have to make the same decisions, whether to forsake all and follow Him or to follow the broad path of religion that will end up in eternal destruction.  Many there be that find it while naming the name of Jesus, claiming to have cast out devils and performed miracles in His name.

What’s our fruit?  How quickly do you obey the Word of God?  That’s your fruit.  What are you doing for God that will remain?  Let me remind you of one thing:  Everything else will burn.  There will be a day of reckoning in which you will give account of every idle word.  As we stand in the midst of this evil and adulterous generation, in this environment of Sodom and Gomorrah, in the days of the Judges when each man did what was right in his own eyes, the Holy Spirit is speaking to the church.  Listen, “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.”  This Parable of the Sower in Mark’s gospel is about hearing; it’s about having receptive hearts.  In what condition do we find ourselves?  Are we ripping stuff off of ourselves and becoming freer, or are we becoming more bound because of “liberties”?

We believe in biblical prosperity; we believe that God sets rich men among us.  We have heard the admonitions and woes that are to each one of us concerning riches.  Riches are only one part of this thorny ground.  Jesus spoke about the lusts of other things, and those are not just material things; the greatest lust that still manifests itself in every one of us is that lust for independence.  We celebrate it today:  Independence Day.  We don’t need independence; we need the lordship of Jesus.  We need a Lord to watch over us and tell us when to go in and when to come out, to tell us which way to follow, and to tell those of us involved in ministry to preach the Word.

We don’t need to hear about politics; we don’t need to hear stories and poems and all that these great orators have said over the years, who have built churches on other than the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Today it’s being done through demographics, though the seeker‑friendly approach to the gospel.  You will not walk into any of those churches and hear anything about repentance or sin or death to self.  Men will not tolerate that today.  You will hear the phrases of the world, such as “My truth.”  Well, let me tell you something:  If your “truth” conflicts with the Word of God, it’s a lie!  But we are not supposed to say that today as Christians.