November 19, 2010 – Mark 3:20 - 4:20

Who is the strong man?  Satan I believe.  What is his strength?  Sin.  So, what is Jesus saying when He says before you can plunder the house, first you must tie up the strong man.  What I think He is saying is that we fear sin and death.  Our greatest fear is death and what comes after.  We may try to ignore it and live our lives like we are not concerned about it, but everyone fears death.  Sin and death are were Satan has his strength.  Until something comes and gives us power over sin and death so that we do not fear it, we cannot battle Satan or plunder his home.  Christ came to tie up the Strong Man.  By His coming, His dying, His rising, He has conquered sin and death and given us the freedom to not fear them.  With Satan tied up, we are free to do God’s will, do God’s work and plunder Satan’s home.  But if you do not accept what Christ did, you are allowing yourself to fear sin and death, to be essential guarded by Satan, so that you cannot be plundered away by Christ.  You are a statue on Satan’s book self that he wants to keep and as long as he is free and able to roam and guard that shelf, Christ cannot save you.  We must let Christ come in, tie Satan up, and steal us away, take away that fear of sin and death, so that we can be His. 

The parable of the Sower and the seeds.  We did catch a glimpse of this yesterday talking about seed on rocky ground.  It is always a good parable to reflect on and where we are at in our life.  What type of ground we are.  Also, we have to be available or look for the seeds.  What this parable neglects to mention is the area of ground that the Sower doesn’t go to.  Obviously nothing is going to grow there because there are no seeds being sown.  This teaches us two things.  First we must be planting seeds.  We may be the only person someone will have to plant a seed and we don’t know what type of ground you have until you start planting those seeds.  Second, we must be open to sowers.  We may be the most fertile ground out there, but if we aren’t looking for seeds or putting ourselves out there, we won’t get any seeds to grow in our ground.  We must always be looking to grow our faith, learn new things, learn why things are the way they are, listen to teachers, and be available for seeding.  Our else we may just be a really fertile vacant lot.