Answers Bible Curriculum: Lesson 9 - Jesus Teaches in Parables

All right. So we are going to Jump into the parables this morning, but before we do, just wanna ask what stood out to you last week about our study of Jesus's cleansing. Of the temple. And I've got some prompts there with the pictures.

So, anything stand out? Yeah, Joe. Yeah. Yeah.

Right. No, but that's true. Yeah, totally. So, yeah, Joe, that's one of the things that stands out to me too, Joe's sharing just how that nobody Stop Jesus.

Nobody, like, there weren't any bouncers that jumped on him and said, what are you doing here? And, so yeah, it's, it's, it's a little interesting. I, I've never really thought of this as one of the miracles of Christ, but John Gill brings that out. For one man to go into this area just with a little tool and drive out all the animals and all the individuals, and nobody stops him, and the Roman soldiers don't arrest him.

it's, yeah, just very interesting. So our, our outline last week, if you remember, so we were talking about the zeal of Christ. We talked about where he went, which is the temple, what he found, a bunch of people selling in the temple, selling these animals and money changers was not the problem. This was something that's been going on for a long time.

It was the location that it was in the temple. And there does seem to be an indication that that there was undue profit. This should have been something to benefit Israel, but people are making a lot of money on it. What he did, he gets angry and throws everybody out.

Why he did it, he says, my house, my father's house should not be a place of merchandise. In another passage, this is a house of prayer. And then the signs he gave, we talked about last week, they asked for a sign. He says, Tear down this, temple, and I'll build it up in 3 days.

It's an obscure. almost concealing type of message, but then later on, he's healing a bunch of people. And then, the commitment he withheld, he, so he does not commit himself to these people that he was doing miracles with because he knew what was in man. So he knew what was in their hearts.

So this is what Joe was referring to. John Gill says, this action of his in driving out the merchants with their cattle shows, it was a surprising instant of his divine power and is equal to Other miracles of his. So very, yeah, very miraculous that Jesus would come in. We didn't really have time to get into just the whole issue of righteous and unrighteous anger.

You can go back and look at that in the notes. And, but there, there is something to learn here that's, you can express anger righteously as Jesus did, but then again, he's Jesus. So, we have to be very careful in how we express our anger, leaving judgment to the Lord and so on. This morning, we're gonna be talking about Jesus teaching in the parables or in A parabolic type of method or form, and it raises this question, why did Jesus teach using parables?

That's really the, the section that we're looking at. This is the main question, and Jesus answers this question, and his answer to the question is somewhat confusing. I don't know how many of you guys saw my email last night, but, many of us, all of us have had teachers in our lifetime, some good teachers, some bad teachers, and I don't know about you, but the teachers that I consider to be good teachers in my life, either in high school or college, what have you, were people that had a knack for explaining things, making it seem simple and very understandable.

And when somebody can really help me understand a complex subject, Put it in simple terms that I can get my mind around.

You, you feel like that's a good teacher. Now I understand. Some of the bad teachers I had, things were so complicated, they didn't seem to know what they were doing. It was hard to understand.

Well, that whole method is gonna raise a very interesting question when we look at this passage, is does Jesus want everybody to understand that's listening to him? And the answer is, no. He's not teaching for everybody to get it, which throws his, what we call his pedagogy or his method of teaching. In question, why wouldn't Jesus want everybody to get it?

Especially since we're talking about the gospel here. So, that's, that's what we're gonna be talking about. Let's define a parable from your curriculum. This is from your reading this week.

A parable is an earthly story with a heavenly meaning. I like that definition. It's, it's pretty simple. it's normally has to do with very common things that happen in everyday life, but the teacher is trying to point to something else.

and hopefully, I'm not sure if we'll have time for this, but I'm hoping that we can get to the interpretation of parables. We're gonna spend a lot of time in Matthew 13. But one of the big interpretive principles of parables is there's normally one main meaning. We're not looking for meanings under every single stone in a parable.

It's normally a story to get at one idea. And if you read any of the literature out there, especially in the medieval period, you'll find people trying to interpret every little detail of a parable and giving it a spiritual meaning. But normally, there's one meaning, and normally the meaning comes towards the end of the parable. And so, we'll kinda maybe get to that a little bit later, if not today, next week.

What we wanna do is, is, is we're gonna spend the bulk of our time. In Matthew 13, so if you can go ahead and turn there. To Matthew 13. As we look at this parable is somewhat of an example.

Of parables in general, but it's really gonna help us see some interesting things about the way Christ approaches teaching. So, we're gonna call this section parabolic pedagogy of Christ. That's a mouthful, the parabolic pedagogy of Christ. Parabolic meaning Parables, right?

Teaching in parables. Pedagogy is just in it, I know we have some teachers. Bill's a retired teacher. Any other teachers in the room?

OK, good. So, pedagogy is just your method or philosophy of teaching. Anybody who goes to, if you go to study to be a teacher, you're gonna have courses that will talk about your pedagogy. What's the best way of teaching so that your students get the material and they're able to learn and grow.

Well, Jesus clearly has a pedagogy. He's gonna be teaching parables. In fact, some people say that 1/3 of all of Christ's words in the New Testament are parables. And your curriculum that you guys read this week indicates that about halfway through Christ's ministry, he began to teach, at least publicly, almost exclusively in parables.

So, he starts off with a smaller group, he's doing a lot of, 1 on 13 on 3, 12 on 12 instruction, then you've got like the Sermon on the Mount, things like that. but then the further he closer he gets to the cross, the more he starts teaching in parables. And, so we're gonna be investigating that and why he does that. In chapter 13.

So, let's first of all, I've got what amounts, I think, 5 points. So, we're gonna first of all, look at the classroom. So, let's start in verse 1, the classroom. On the same day, and I'm reading from a New King James, by the way, on the same day, Jesus went out of the house and sat by the sea, and great multitudes were gathered together to him so that he got into a boat and sat.

And the whole multitude stood on the shore. So this is our classroom or setting. It's a very nice classroom setting, right? Be out on the beach, teaching your students, right?

it could be some distractions. But it says on the same day in verse one, this is probably the same day back in, if you look back to chapter 12, the same day that he healed the mute demon possessed blind person. So, this is a person that was both blind and deaf, probably, couldn't speak and was also demon possessed. What a really just terrible position to be in.

Jesus heals this person. By the way, I don't know if, if you guys are familiar with this ministry, but we support a, a mission called Biblical Ministries Worldwide and, and in Los Angeles, actually near Pasadena, they have a facility for the deaf and blind, where they minister to them. It's an amazing ministry. If you wanna look it up sometime, Biblical Ministries worldwide, deaf and blind.

And there are people that live there, they suit them with apartments, and there's people that minister the gospel to them. It's incredible. A person stands up and preaches, and then there's people with each deaf blind person one on one. They watch the preacher, and then they sign into the hands of each individual.

So they're hearing the gospel preached from somebody who's preaching from the pulpit, and then individually, someone is signing into their hands. Incredible. you, they've got an amazing, video, if you go look on It's not YouTube. What's the other one?

Vimeo, so it's on Vimeo, I think. Anyway, that's a sideline. So Jesus heals a person like that. On that same day, he's having these interactions with the Pharisees.

Then remember, his mom and brother show up outside, they want to talk to him. He says, who are my brothers and mother? It's those who do the will of the Father. But then he, he comes outside, perhaps to meet with his mothers and brothers out of the house, then he sits by the sea.

this is probably almost certainly the Sea of Galilee and other places called the Sea of Tiberius. And perhaps he's sitting there, just have some family time, maybe to take a break. He's been very busy, but what happens when Jesus goes out to take a break, right? A crowd gathers.

So, so he's out here in the classroom of the, of the sea, a great multitude gathers together. And so he gets into a boat and sits, and the whole multitude stood on the shore. So now we have this classroom, right? and his teaching lectern is he gets up in a ship.

So you have to imagine, this is not like a little rowboat. This is something that would give him some height and ability to project out to a very large group. Some people say that he may have been a little bit out to sea enough to cause his voice to be amplified on the water. Does that make sense?

Have any of you guys ever been, any of you guys go fishing up there to Mammoth and, You could, you could be across the water from somebody and hear them talking. In low tones and, and yet the and their voice will come across the water, right? That idea. Or your kids, you tell your kids, hey, there's fishermen out here, keep your voices down.

We don't wanna scare the fish away. And you hear them making lots of noise across the water on the rocks, Sam. See it, and he hears it, right? Cause my whisper is traveling across the water, and he turns around and he realizes, what I'm supposed to be a little more quiet than this.

I don't wanna scare away the big one, right? so that could be what's going on. So, that kinda takes us to the, to the students who's out here. well, it's a multitude, verse two, it's a great multitude.

are gathered together. So, whenever you see the word multitude, we don't know exactly how many people this represents, but this would clearly indicate that this isn't just the disciples, the 12, it's not just those who, are following Jesus for all the right reasons and have been touched by the Holy Spirit. These, these are people who are following him for many, it could be many different reasons. They wanna hear about the controversy that's going on between him and the, Pharisees, maybe they've heard about healing, they wanna come see a show, maybe they wanna get healed themselves.

Maybe they want, they, they're feeling distance from God, they wanna hear the gospel. There's lots of different reasons why this multitude could be gathered. So let's talk about the lesson. We're gonna call it the lesson concealed.

So he starts in verse 3, then he spoke many things to them in parables, saying, so there's lots of things he says, if you guys are familiar with this chapter, the whole rest of the chapter is parables. So these would almost certainly be a sampling of the things that he taught, but there may be more things than are actually recorded. he says, behold, a sower went out to sow. and as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside.

Now, when I was teaching this to my, my family last night, my little guy, Samuel, a sower went out to sow. I have to explain to them that that's not sowing like this, right? It's what farmers do. They throw seed out onto the land.

So, we're talking about throwing seed. he sowed some fell by the wayside and the birds came. And devoured them. So, I'm, I'm not a farmer, but as I read about farmers and read commentaries about this stuff, that theoretically, a farmer would intend to throw seed this way, but as he's sticking his hand in the, in the bag, some may fall out, right?

or if he's got an oxen that's kinda, trying to bring the ground up, and if he's got some mechanical device that's putting seed down, that could fall off to the side, and it falls by the wayside. Now, the wayside here, the literal, the idea is, is a, is a pathway or a trail. So, this would be the hard ground. If any of you guys ever go hiking up in the mountains, you'll have all this wonderful greenery around you, but on the trail, is there anything growing?

No, this, this trail has been packed down by human feet. Nothing's really growing on the trail unless nobody's been hiking, even sometimes even trails where nobody's hiked there for a long time, it's still dirt, right? my son and I in Marino Valley, there's a big old dirt field with some hills that we like to go out to and shoot BB guns, and he's got an arrow. And when we drive back into this area, there's nothing growing on the road that you take to drive, right?

There's some rocky areas where there's something's growing, and there's a bunch of weeds over here, and then you can tell there's this area that's actually been dug up and plowed. Somebody used to Use that. You can tell just the way it's in this big circle. Somebody was using it at some point for something.

In fact, there's an old, old cement aqueduct where somebody years past was bringing water down from the hill. But so, but nothing's growing on this dirt driveway. And so that's, that's the idea here. And the birds came down and devoured them.

So you throw some seed out on this driveway, and the birds eventually notice it. They come down and they eat it up. He goes on and says, some fell on stony places where they did not have much earth, and they immediately sprang up because they had No depth of earth, but when the sun was up, they, they were scorched, and because they had no root, they became withered. So, you will see some things that will grow up in real stony, shallow ground.

And Jesus is talking to a bunch of people that would have been very aware of this. It's a very agrarian society. Yeah, we've seen that stuff. And, we've seen plants grow up and then die immediately if it's not in, in good enough ground.

then verse 7, some fell among the thorns, and the thorns spring up and choke them, but others fell on good ground and yielded a crop, some 100fold, some 60, and some 30. So, the, the hundredfold, 60/30, the idea would be here is if theoretically, you threw out 10 seeds. Hundredfold would be. 1000, right?

1000. there's, there's just lots of growth happening. So, 60, 30, 100-fold of the investment, right? I think it's more of the investment idea.

And then he ends by saying verse 9, he who has ears to hear, let him hear. Which is interesting. This is the same day that he healed a deaf blind mute who's demon possessed. And then he's saying, he who has hears to hear, let him hear.

This is a very common phrase that Jesus would use. So that's the lesson. That's the end of the lesson. So, you have to imagine Jesus says these things from the boat.

And perhaps with many other parables, and then he gets out of the boat and just starts walking away. Which raises an obvious question. What does all this mean? You've told us these stories, the story of a farmer.

What? What does this mean? We've got 4 different soils. And so, you guys can imagine this.

a lot of you guys, there's lots of places around here where you can hike and stuff. So, the, the first type of soil, like we talked about is a hard pathway. Second type of soil, there's rocky ground. Maybe you guys like to go rock climbing and stuff like that.

You're normally not gonna see a bunch of things growing around the rocks. Then there's the weedy thorn areas, but then it's real clear when you drive around here where soil has been turned up and where you could imagine something growing there. Even when I was talking to my son last night, we're talking about our BB gun arrow area, which we just happened to go to yesterday, and he was able to identify those places and I asked him, If we tried to plant a tomato plant out there in that soft ground where your arrows stick in nice, do you think it would grow?

And he goes, yeah, I think it would grow there.

What about where we drive the car? Do you think anything would grow there? No. Why?

It's too hard. so we just went through. So you could see like Jesus telling stories like this, even a child, right, could at least hear the, the visual of it and get an idea of the farming. But if you just stop right there as Jesus does, What's the point?

And that brings us to the method explained. is now the multitudes have left, and it says in verse 10, the disciples came and said to him, why do you speak to them? In parables. Why are you speaking to the multitudes in this way?

It's not because parabolic teaching was brand new. There's lots of evidence, documented parables and evidence of Jewish teachers. There's some really famous Jewish teachers, in fact, that taught in parables. So, I don't know that that's really what they're asking.

Why, why are you teaching in parables? it's more that there's no explanation. Normally, the parabolic Jewish teachers would teach a parable and then tell you, here's what that means. Like, remember Nathan went and told David a story, right?

I'll tell you a story about a guy who had this lamb and he really loved him and he was a pet to him, but then a, a rich guy came and took it and killed it and offered it up for food because he didn't want to take from his own flock. Right? It's a story to get to a point, and then he tells David, here's the point, you're the man. Right?

So it's very clear what that story was in, where it was going. but Jesus is telling all these stories, but he's not explaining. And so the disciples have a very, it's an excellent question. And so here's the way Jesus answers this in a way that if, if we had never read this story before, this should be shocking and surprising.

those of you that have been hearing this story since Sunday school, you read this, you're like, oh yeah. Yeah, I've, I've heard that. But just imagine you're the disciples, you're saying, Jesus, why aren't you explaining the parables? He says, because it has been given.

To you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. That's a very odd answer. You, you, you're really getting right away, Jesus is setting up this us them thing. it hasn't been given to them to understand these mysteries.

But to you, and, and in context, this is not just the 12. We know from Mark chapter 4, verse 10, you can go look at that yourself. There's others that are there that are in this category of disciples. And so, to you all, the mysteries of the kingdom have been given, but to them, the mysteries have not been given.

That's why I'm teaching them in parables and not explaining the parable. He goes on further verse 12, for whoever has to him will be more will be given. And he will have abundance, but whoever does not have even what he has will be taken away from him. Therefore, I speak to them in parables because seeing they do not see, hearing, they do not hear, nor do they understand.

This doesn't really ring fair, does it? Like if you're in Jesus' class and he's teaching concepts that's confusing everybody, then he takes this little group and says, come on over here, and he starts explaining to them what's going on, but these others, he's like, well, that, it's not been given to them, but it's been given to you. It's like, it's like, who, who are the teacher's pets here, right? It's like you've got this group called the disciples that seem to be the teacher's pets.

You got this whole other group called the multitudes that are being left out of the explanation. And Jesus says it just hasn't been given to them. it has been given to you. The mysteries are given to you.

and by the way, those who have more will be given to them. In fact, it's gonna be taken from these and given to the ones who have. This should rub us wrong. And, and we need to remember when we're reading through the Bible, if you start to feel a certain way, It's intended, almost always.

So when you start to feel uncomfortable with what Jesus is saying, that's not accidental. It's, we're not, you're not the first person in history to read this section and feel uncomfortable. He's saying this stuff on purpose to make the disciples feel uncomfortable. He's driving towards a point.

And so let's, let's try to figure out what this is. so, so he goes back, so he says these, I speak to them in parables because seeing they do not see, hearing, they do not hear, nor do they understand. But then he goes further, verse 14, and in them, the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled. So there's a, a fulfillment of a prophecy that's happening right now with the multitudes.

Hearing you will hear and shall not. Understand. Seeing, you will see and not perceive, for the hearts of these people have grown dull, their ears are hard of hearing, their eyes, they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their hearts in turn, so the eyes should heal them. So he's going back and he's, he's, he's reciting this prophecy from Isaiah.

This was a prophecy that was given to Judah. because remember Isaiah's written largely to the southern tribes. There's all kinds of prophets that came and had warned Judah, and over hundreds of years, there were some pockets of revival, like underneath Josiah, the end of Manasseh's life, but for the most part, there's ignoring of the prophecies. And, and so Isaiah is saying, OK.

Now we're moving into a time of judgment. No longer am I going to be giving them very clear prophecies. They're, I'm now going to be confusing them. I'm now gonna close their eyes.

They want to harden their hearts, they're closing their eyes. I will help them with what's called judicial blindness. They, I, I will no longer open their eyes, so that they should see, so that they should understand the truth. And so part of what we're seeing here.

there is both a sovereign decree and a human culpability. Judah had been sent prophecies for hundreds of years, and yet they turned a deaf ear to these prophecies, wanted to persist in their bal worship and their idolatry. So finally, there comes a point where God says, fine, you don't wanna hear, you don't want to repent. I will now help you in this hardening process.

It's similar to what you see in Romans 1, where God turns them over, turns them over, turns them over. Because they did not want the truth. In 2 Thessalonians chapter, I think it's chapter 2, it says, God will send them a strong delusion so that they could not believe, should not believe the truth. So, there is this thing in the Bible called the, it's a divine judgment or divine hardening that we need to be aware of.

And so, when the the disciples are asking, why are you teaching them in parables? Remember, the parables really start to increase about halfway through Christ's ministry. He's going toe to toe with these Pharisee scribes and Sadducees, and many of the multitude are following along, either just wanting to see the show or going along with the Pharisee scribes and Sadducees. So Jesus begins basically backpedaling away from the multitudes and just starts telling them parables.

So this, this fulfilled prophecy is, it's a, it's a, there's a dual fulfillment. We see this a lot in prophecy. There was a, a partial fulfillment, an early fulfillment with Judah, but it was looking towards another fulfillment here in Christ's life as he was prophesized to come and teach in parables, and now he is starting to do this divine withdrawal from the people of Israel, particularly as represented by the the Jewish leadership Pharisees and Sadducees. So as they continue, now remember, Jesus, when he, after he heals the blind, deaf, demon possessed mute.

He gets into this debate with the Pharisees where they began to accuse him of healing in the power of Satan. Remember that? And, and Jesus then begins to talk about what? The blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.

I'm, I'm out here, the Messiah healing people. You're saying that my power comes from the devil. Then he talks about blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. Now Jesus is doing this divine withdrawal and starting to teach in parables.

When he's asked why is he teaching in parables, he says, so that they can't believe. So what do we have here? We have divine judgment coming upon Israel. We know that Israel As a people group, many of them are gonna get saved, but many of, most of them are gonna reject the Messiah.

He will be crucified, and in 70 AD Jerusalem is gonna be demolished, right? So, just as Babylon came down and Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Judah and wiped out Jerusalem, but then there was a return. After the Messiah is crucified, the church begins to be built up, but then the church starts getting persecuted and picked on. God brings Titus in, bam, and just destroys Jerusalem.

So not really what we wanted to hear, but, so we, that's the method. You have this, this divine, divined judgment, which brings us to the last section here, and that is the lesson revealed. So the disciples at this point, when they hear Christ's explanation about how that he is telling them parables so that they should stay in darkness because they really don't wanna know the truth anyway. It should have the effect of making the hair rise up on the back of the necks of the disciples.

The question that should be entering their minds and should be entering our minds is, Oh boy. Is that gonna be my fate? What about me? If Jesus is now basically withdrawing himself from these people, In divine judgment, where does that leave me?

And that's where we get to verse 16, but notice what he says in verse 16 and following, but blessed are your eyes, for they see and your ears, for they hear. That's an amazing passage. Blessed, so happy, providentially blessed are your eyes and your ears. You see and you hear.

And it raises the question. There's a lot of parables have this implied question behind them that doesn't always get answered in the text, but you're expected to know the answer. The question that we should be asking here if you're a disciple, why do I see and why do I hear? Why is that?

Why am I the blessed one who is seeing and hearing? One way you could answer that is say, because I'm smart enough, right? I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me, right? Anybody know that skit from Al Franken?

Most of you guys don't know. OK. So, Is that the right answer, that, the disciples were just smart enough people. They figured it out.

They were committed enough. They were, they sacrificed enough. They were radical enough. Is that why?

Absolutely not. And I, I think there's a, there's a key, there's a couple of clues here why we can say absolutely not, just like Brian did. The first clue is the word blessed. The word blessed always has this idea of something that has happened unto us, not that we're doing to ourselves.

Blessed. That's a state of being that is granted to us by God. Blessed. Remember way back to the, this is the same book where we heard the Sermon on the Mount, Blessed are the poor in spirit.

How did the disciples get to a place of being poor in spirit, at least they're on that journey of being poor in spirit. Christ had taught them is bringing them along to help them see that they, they cannot be saved by the law, they must try to be perfect. They can't be perfect, so therefore, they needed to depend upon Christ. Blessed are your eyes and your ears.

Now, what happened the same day again? Who did Jesus heal? A deaf, blind, mute, demon possessed, they watched it happen. Right?

How did that deaf blind mute who was demon possessed get to a place where he could now see and hear and talk and no longer be demon possessed? How did that happen? He was healed. It was a miracle.

He didn't pull himself up by his own bootstraps. He didn't suddenly say, what? I'm tired of being blind. I'm gonna work a lot harder and I'm gonna start seeing right now.

I, I'm tired of being deaf. I'm gonna go out and really exercise my eardrums and I'm gonna start hearing. No, this was a miraculous work of God's blessed grace. And so Jesus says to these disciples, blessed are your eyes, they see your ears, for they hear.

and no doubt, they're blessed because of the spiritual awakening that's happened, but also they're blessed because of the position that they're in in history, as he says in the very next verse. For assuredly, I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, but did not see it, to hear it, what you hear and did not hear it. So, these are righteous men that he's talking about now. These prophets who are righteous before you, they prophesized about others, they would have loved to be in your position.

But here you are, you're blessed spiritually because your eyes have been spiritually open, but you're also blessed in a physical historical sense because you've been put in this situation where you're actually able to look at the Son of God that was prophesized about previously. But then notice what he says in verse 18, therefore, hear the parable of the sower. Think about that What's Jesus is now gonna go on and explain what this means. He says, you're blessed.

And now I am going to explain it to you. think about this, the, the multitudes were blind and Jesus was not gonna explain it to them. Now these blessed people are in the position to hear the Son of God explain to them the meaning of the parable. So what Jesus is doing for the disciples here is the same thing the Holy Spirit's gonna be doing when Jesus goes to heaven and sends the Holy Spirit.

Remember later, he's gonna say, unless I leave, the Holy Spirit cannot come. It's good for me to leave, so the Holy Spirit will come. When he comes, he'll guide you into all what? Truth.

So what the Holy Spirit is gonna do in the future, bringing Christ's words to mind and help them understand the import of it, what the Holy Spirit does for us today when we read the Bible, Jesus is doing the Holy Spirit's function right there, eye to eye, face to face with the disciples. He's explaining his word, he's illuminating this parable. What a blessed position to be in, to have the Son of God explaining this parable right in front of them. So then he, so he goes into the explanation, verse 19.

When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, so now we're using the word here in a different way. They, it's hitting their eardrums and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown. In his heart, this is he who receives seed by the wayside or on the walkway on the hard ground, right? So here's, so here's the, here's the understanding.

It's the seed is the word of the kingdom. So this is the gospel. the kingdom of heaven is God's reign on earth, and the way that he's gonna distribute that rain to Jesus Christ and his life, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension, and his return, that's a mouthful, but that's a summary of the word of the kingdom. So somebody hears about the gospel, But they don't understand it.

Their heart hasn't been awakened. They don't have the eyes to understand it. then the devil, the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown. this is he who received the seed on the hard ground.

So there's people who are gonna, they hear the physical words of the gospel, they can hear it hit their eardrum. But it hits hard ground, just lays there, it does nothing. It's like Charlie Brown's teacher, right? Wah wah wah wah wah wah.

But the devil, this is what the spooky part, the devil as represented, a lot of times when we say the wicked one, it's, it's like this, it's a figure of speech, like a metonym, I think is the term, where you take the leader is representing the whole. So it's really talk about demons, right? When we say something like George Bush bombed Iraq, what does that mean? Did George Bush fly one big plane and bomb Iraq?

No, we're talking about the leader as representative of the whole sent armies. When you say the wicked one, you're really talking about demons. So anytime we're sitting here in church, this is the thing that should spook us out. is we're sitting here in church, we're singing the gospel, we're preaching the gospel.

There are demons, just in the air, just looking around to take seed from that's hitting hard hearts. There's really a spiritual component. That's what Jesus is revealing. We would know this information if Jesus didn't tell us, but there's seed that goes out.

It's not understood, it hits hard ground, the wicked one comes and just snatches it right away. That should make the hair rise up on the back of her neck, that, that, that, that there's a spiritual thing, warfare going on. But then, verse 20 but he who received the seed on stony places, this one is he who hears the word, immediately receives it with joy. So, this person's ground, so they hear the gospel.

Initially, they're like, yeah, that's true. I like that. maybe they affirm the historical faith. They believe that Jesus really did live on the earth.

They look out, they see there's good moral things that happen because of Christianity. religion is very important to society. If you look at, read some of our founding fathers, many of them said that religion is so important. We must keep God in the society.

It doesn't mean they were saved, they just saw that they had benefits. I remember Benjamin Franklin went and heard George Whitfield preach on a number of occasions, thought that he was an incredible preacher. At one point, he said, that's the one guy that could just make me wanna take every dollar, every coin out of my pocket and I wanna give it. Benjamin Franklin, to my knowledge, never got saved.

He was a, DS to the end, even created his own religion, and, but thought that George Whitfield was a great guy. So they hear, receive it with joy, yet it has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles. So the sun rises up, which represents persecution.

They're being called to account to, to stand for Christ, and they don't. And John, you can write this reference down, John 12 verses 42 and 43. There were those of the Pharisees and Sadducees that did believe, but there were, but a lot of them would not state it publicly because they're afraid of being thrown out of the synagogue. So there were some who were thrown out of the synagogue that would stand for Christ and even with loss of their status, they stood for Christ.

There's others that just would not make that stand. And so this has been going on since the beginning of time. You guys have all seen it. I remember when I became a true Christian at 14 years old in high school, I had friends that would come and talk with me about Christian things, but as soon as their other friends came and joined our group, they would immediately turn coat, start using foul language or this, that to make it very clear to their buddies that they weren't around me, the Jesus freak, they weren't too buddy buddy with me.

they wanted to make sure that their associations were very clearly stated. and you guys have probably all seen this and experienced it. Yeah. The reference was John 12:42 and 43.

Yeah Then, so, so that covers the stony grounds. We have the, the hard path, we have the stones. Verse 22. Now, he who received the seed among the thorns is he who hears the word.

And the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word and he becomes unfruitful. So, what are the thorns? It's, it's cares, it's riches, they have an appreciation for the gospel, maybe they go to church, they hear the gospel preach. There's a part of their hearts that, affirms and, and recognizes the value of the gospel, but they just quite frankly get caught up.

I think of how many pop stars and music stars and things like that that started in the church. you go see them when they first start singing on American Idol or The Voice or something like that. They get up there, they look so cute, and they say they're a Christian, and they get up there and they have an amazing voice, and they win some competition, and then two years later, you look at them and you're like, you don't look any different from any of these other pagans. I have to turn my eyes away from these Christians, the way they dress, when they go out and suddenly they get famous.

it's like, what happened with the cares of the world. And so, there's this saying that in Nashville, that, it's, it's a common saying that Christians come to Nashville to change Nashville, but Nashville changes them. It's just so common that you could, Nashville is, it's not just the country western capital of the world, it's also the contemporary Christian music capital of the world. And if you really want to get found out and really move up the ranks, so to speak, in Christian music, you move to Nashville, and that's where you do your music.

but so many of these people, they go and they try to make it big, and Nashville just changes them. That's not everybody, but it, it's, it puts on display what Jesus is talking about here, that soil. Verse 23, but he who receives seed on the good ground, so this is soft turned ground. is he who hears.

And the word, here's the word, and understands it. We haven't seen that word yet applied to the other soils, who indeed bears fruit and produces some 1, 60, and 30 fold. And so, notice, so we've got the word hears again. All of these soils, they hear it, but this is the only soil soil where they understand it.

And they're bearing fruit and, and there's various levels of production. And so, in this explanation here, you see good ground, you see hearing and understanding, but you see different levels of fruitfulness. So it's clear that those that have the seed that grows up, they're not all gonna be, have the exact same level of production, but there is gonna be production. Notice just a little bit of the irony here in this whole section.

why are the disciples blessed? They're blessed because their eyes. See in their ears here, and Jesus is actually the very one that is telling them the explanation. And so they're blessed because Jesus is giving them the explanation.

And so, as he's telling them about these four soils, it's pretty obvious that the disciples are which one of the four soils. The soft ground. They're getting the explanation. and then, it begs the question, why would they be the soft ground?

Because They are blessed There, the soil of their hearts has been turned by Christ and by His Spirit. soil doesn't turn itself over. None of your hearts just started turning itself. you're not gonna go out into a field and watch dirt just start popping up in the air.

A person goes over and starts turning up soil, putting good manure and stuff in that soil. Pastor Milton loves to get the fish guts that I bring home from Mammoth, and he puts fish guts in his soil and grows up these incredible tomatoes that are just amazing and juicy. But the, that soil doesn't just suddenly start doing it to itself. And so, so again, there's this This whole narrative, there's people here who fit in different parts, aspects of the soil.

The temptation, I know, like, reading this as a young person, the temptation in reading this parable is for me to look at it and be like, OK, which soil do I need to work to become? I don't wanna be that hard soil. I don't wanna be the thorny soil. I don't wanna be the stony soil.

I wanna be the soft ground. So what works do I need to do to become the soft ground? Now, there is an aspect of this parable that should give us warning, right? We should look at the soils and be like, Lord, help me.

I don't wanna be these, I, I don't wanna be the thorny one. I don't wanna just give to the cares of the world. That should be natural for us to do that. But if the only result we get is that we feel like we gotta go out there and work to be the soft ground, we've missed the point.

We've completely missed the point. Jesus says, blessed are your eyes and your ears, and then he explains it to them, and he's done this all on the back end of healing a deaf, blind, demon possessed mute. So the, so what should, it should be just really crystal clear in the minds of the disciples, I need the Lord to turn over my heart. I need, if I'm gonna be in this blessed place, I wanna be poor in spirit.

I wanna look and see, yes, my heart could be just like that hard ground. My heart is stony at times. There are thorns that are always creeping in. Jesus, help me, help my heart stay soft.

And that's exactly the prayer that he wants to, to hear, right? James tells us later, James would have heard this, this parable, and he says later, God resists the proud, but what gives grace. To the humble. So, we say, Lord, please grant me humility.

Is that a prayer that Jesus wants to answer? Yeah. Lord, help me be humble. He wants answered prayers like that.

So you just step out baby steps of humility. Guess what? He wants to keep us humble. He wants to turn our hearts.

This, by the way, this completely accords with what we see in the Old Testament. Remember, go back to Ezekiel. God promises in Ezekiel that he's gonna take out a heart of what? Stone and leave a heart of flesh.

Who does that? God are you? It's God. So, so Christ is teaching very much in accord with the spirit of Ezekiel and the Old Testament, that there is such a thing as a heart of stone.

That's why you have these prophets going out and Israel and Judah's rejecting them. but he comes along and he says, even though the Israel and Judah has rejected me, there's coming a day when I'm going to take out that heart of stone, and I'm gonna give them a heart of flesh so that they would, want to, and they would have the ability to obey my words. In my law. So, let's make some summary statements here.

You guys are gonna see a I really like John Gill. All my quotes here from John Gill. So John Gill is a Baptist theologian, pastor from the 1700s. He's an amazing guy.

so here's a couple of things that he says in his summaries, summary of the, of this section, looking at the The lesson concealed and the lesson revealed. the fowls came and devoured them, that is the seed, and, the other evangelists say the fowls of the air and mean the devils, so-called, because their habitation is in the air, hence, they are said to be the power of the air. And because of their ravenous and devouring nature, their swiftness to do mischief and their flocking in multitudes where the word is preached to hinder its usefulness as fowls do.

Where seed is sowing, Satan and his principalities and powers rove about in the air, come down on earth and seek whom they may devour, and often mix themselves in religious assemblies to do what mischief they can.

I don't know, I forget about that. when we're preaching, you're sharing the gospel with a friend. It's not just about you making the most logical arguments. We do wanna be logical.

We do wanna present the gospel well. We do wanna have our lives on display, right? As a light. But there is, there are spiritual realities that are going on here, and we don't always know what soil, what condition the heart is in, and so we just preach the gospel, we'd be faithful.

Katie was telling me, she's going through this series on biblical counseling, and Jim Newheiser was saying that we're not responsible for the results, we just wanna be faithful. Just be faithful to counsel and teach the word of God, and then we gotta trust the Holy Spirit. We're not responsible to change anybody. You can't change anybody.

and we don't always know where the devil's plucking seed. But guess what? Who is the best teacher on the planet at this time in Earth's history? Sunday school answer, Jesus, right?

And yet Jesus, when he's out teaching, he says, there were, there's 4 soils when I teach, right? So the best teacher, the guy who has the best pedagogy, goes and preaches the word and it's gonna land in different places, right? And so, it's not gonna be any different with us. it's the power of the gospel and hearts that have been prepared by the Spirit.

Gill goes on to say, where they had not much earth to cover them and to take root. This is expressive of such persons who have slight conviction of sin and awakening of the natural conscience, some little light speculative notions of the word in the understanding and judgment, some flashes of natural affection for it, outward expressions of delight and pleasure in it. Some show grace in a form of godliness, but no real heart for the work. I'll, I'll probably send all this to you.

It's just, I love like his little summaries of each soil. And like where he would categorize them. Let me just take us to some, I, I think some concluding, these, these are Gill's summary thoughts on this section of scripture. Here we see set forth for us the nature of the Word of God, the work and business of ministering it.

So as we're out ministering the word and preaching the gospel, the different success of preaching of it. So, if you're preaching the gospel and you're finding that not everybody's responding, guess what? Not everybody responded to Christ. And the fruitfulness of it.

So there are gonna be people whose hearts have been prepared by the Holy Spirit. We should expect that as well. So part of, I think what I, one of the things I was encouraged with is this idea that you also see in the book of Ecclesiastes, it's like, spread a lot of seed. Right?

It's the Holy Spirit's responsibility to save people, but he's given us the human responsibility to go out and cast seed. And if we spread a lot of seed, guess what? Some of that seed's gonna land in good ground. But if we're not casting a lot of seed, if we're just throwing one here and one there, then from a human perspective, it's kinda like, what fruit are we gonna see from our ministries?

we know this all is underneath God's counsels and sovereignty, but he has given us the human responsibility to go out and preach the gospel. So, just cast it broad, talk to everybody. one of our brothers here at Cornerstone that I meet with periodically, he, at his workplace, it seems like he's just always sharing the gospel, and there's people that have come to Cornerstone, there's people getting saved. And the Lord has put him in a position where he's got an opportunity to talk to a lot of people and I'm just like, man, I need, it just was hitting me this week.

I need to pray for you more. And so I've just been praying for his brother. He's just, he's just an evangelist and I'm so excited. To have him on our team.

we could also say this, that we see an explanation of how to know when the word has been truly received, right? People are gonna hear it, not just understand, that, no, but there's gonna be some fruit that's born. Doesn't mean everybody's gonna have the same level of fruit, but there will be fruit born in their life. The various degrees of fruit it produces, the efficacy of it depends on the grace of God, which makes the heart good and fit to receive it.

So we're not gonna make it work. Efficacy just means what makes it work. It's the Spirit of God. how few they be which hear the word in any spiritual advantage and benefit, it shouldn't discourage us that, it doesn't seem like there's as many in the camp of the gospel as there are in the camp of the camps of wickedness.

That's just part of this life until we get to heaven. How far persons may go in hearing and yet fall short of the grace of God and therefore no dependence is to be had on the external hearing of the word. We have to remember that, especially as parents, we're raising kids up in the church, right? They hear the gospel every day of their lives.

And just because they hear the gospel and they say, yeah, Jesus is a great guy, he's just all right with me, and, and so on and so forth. in this text, you have people who take joy, you have people who seem to really relish in the teaching. I've known people in my lifetime that have a great appreciation for good preaching, and yet when it, when it was all said and done, it didn't really seem like they knew Christ personally. And so, we have to be very careful as we're trying to evaluate our own kids or as we're out preaching the gospel.

People can have, do a lot of hearing. And yet, if the fruit doesn't arise, they don't cause the fruit, the Holy Spirit causes the fruits, the fruits of the Spirit. But if the fruit's not there, we have to be very careful about granting affirmations of salvation or assurances of salvation to people who just like coming to church and hearing a good oration, right? Or some people just love the music, right?

Some people come to church just because they like the attention that they get from Christians. Christians tend to be loving people and they try to help people. Some people will come to church just because Christians help them. That doesn't necessarily mean that somebody is born again.

And so, we don't always know. the, the, the Lord knows, we just keep casting seed. it. Say it again.

Yeah, yeah, it does depend, yeah, on the context, that's true. I Business, oh, that's another one. Yeah. Some people come to church for business contacts.

Yeah, that's true. Multi-tier marketing. Yeah. All right.

We don't have time to get into the other parable, but you guys could look at your material. There is some really good stuff on here, in your, in your lesson on the hermeneutics of parables. I think we've tried to put that on display this morning. But the big thing I want us to walk away with.

I know, I, I'll just be honest with you. This is one of those parables that I haven't really liked in the past. I've read through it, and I try to figure out which one of the soils I am, and I always walk away feeling kinda like, feeling discouraged. but I think if we really understand what Jesus is trying to accomplish here, It should be an encouragement to us.

The other thing is, is we have to be careful. Jesus as Lord has the right to determine the us them. Right? He knows who us them is, and he knows who's part of them who will eventually become us.

But we're not Jesus, and we don't always know where the hearts and souls are. So we have to be careful about doing the us them thing ourselves. We don't always know. If you looked at the apostle Paul, just 30 minutes before he got saved when he was heading up to kill some Christians, you would have said he's them.

You'd have thrown Paul right into the same category as many of the Pharisees. But then all of a sudden, his eyes were opened, right? And so that should humble us, is our eyes got open, not because we're so smart, our eyes got open because God was very gracious and he blessed us. And we don't know who the Lord's going to bless and open eyes of and so we just graciously, we cast out seed.

Just like it says, I think it's in First Timothy, that we wanna in gentleness and in patience, teach others who are in opposition, because we know they've been taken captive by the devil to do his will, and we're waiting for the, for God, if he will perhaps grant them repentance. So there, there's no reason whatsoever for us to stand the Lord over other people whose eyes haven't been opened yet and say, why aren't you believing this stuff? Are you an idiot? It's just not appropriate.

I didn't come to Christ at 14 cause I was so smart. The Lord just opened my eyes. And so we have every reason to be humble and be gracious towards those that don't know him yet. At the same time, not to get discouraged when we're preaching the gospel, we don't see the results we're hoping for.

And, and to be crying out that the Lord would keep our hearts soft. Lord, keep my heart soft. I want my, my heart to continually stay in that place where seed can easily be planted, and that you can cause Cause the growth. That makes sense?

Right, I'm, I'm gonna be up here, if you guys have questions, we can chat a little bit. Next week, we will be talking about the great I Am passages. That's And I'd love to go into that right now. That just makes me salivate.

Where's that?. Oh, it's, it's at the end somewhere. Anyway, just trust me, we're gonna go into the great I am passages next week. Let's go ahead and pray.

Lord, we thank you so much for your word and the wisdom that is put on display and passages like this. This, we would never as human beings think of teaching in this way, but, all men, just as we learned last week, what's in men. And, and so we see it in this passage, you, on the one hand, concealing. Information from people that seem to be falling underneath judgment and revealing information to people that deserve that same judgment, but you have shown grace and you've shown, you've, you've blessed them.

We pray, Father, that you would keep our ears open and our eyes open, Lord, that as that, that, deaf, blind mute that was demon possessed, Lord, that we would see. Just the grace in our own lives. Help us to continue to walk humbly before you. We pray, Father, that as we go out and share the gospel this week, that you would give us the, the boldness and the power to spread seed broadly.

and, and just recognize that you're the one that's gonna bring the increase. It's not Paul, it's not Apollo, it's not us, it's you that brings the increase. We thank you, Lord, that just as Peter was able to declare your son as the Lord, that did not come because of flesh or blood, but because the Father had revealed that to Peter. And so we ask that you would continue to reveal your Son, Lord, to us through your Spirit.

Bless us as we hear your word preached this morning as we use our, our gifts for your glory. In Christ's name, we pray. Amen.