Now as we enter into the 13th chapter,
we come into the area of the parables
that deal with the mysteries of the Kingdom
of Heaven.
And in these, we have more or less
a key to all parables.
And years ago, when I was in seminary,
I had a very smart professor who exhorted
us young seminarians to not preach from the
parables until we had been pastoring for at
least 30 years.
I now qualify.
And I wish I had back a lot
of those sermons that I preached from the
parables when I thought my professor didn't know
what he was talking about.
But over the years, there has been a
definite change in my understanding of the parables.
I do not profess to have a perfect
understanding even at this point.
And as I look at these parables, I
cannot stand before you tonight and say, well
no, this is what Jesus meant and have
that kind of confidence.
All I can share is what I have
come to learn and what I have come
to believe.
But as I continue to grow, I cannot
guarantee that in time, I might even come
to other understandings than what I presently possess.
I will frankly confess to you that I
do not consider my understanding of the parables
complete.
I'm certain that there is more to be
gleaned than what I have yet been able
to gather.
The same day Jesus went out of the
house and he sat by the seaside.
And great multitudes were gathered together under him
so that he went into a ship and
he sat and the whole multitude stood on
the shore.
So, now he is sitting.
He has taken the posture of the teacher.
And this is to the multitudes.
Contrast to the Sermon on the Mount, when
his disciples were coming to him, he opened
his mouth and taught them saying.
But now he is talking to the multitudes
from that little ship just offshore.
And he spake many things unto them in
parables saying, behold, a sower went forth to
sow.
And when he sowed, some seeds fell by
the wayside and the fowls came and devoured
them up.
And some fell upon stony places where they
did not have much earth.
And immediately they sprung up.
But because they had no deepness of earth,
when the sun was up, they were scorched.
And because they had no root, they withered
away.
And some fell among thorns and the thorns
sprung up and choked them.
But others fell on good ground and brought
forth fruit, some a hundred, some sixty, and
some thirtyfold.
Who has ears to hear, let him hear.
Now, let's jump for a moment to verse
18, where Jesus explains this parable.
And this one we can understand because Jesus
explains it.
Hear ye therefore the parable of the sower.
When anyone hears the word of the kingdom
and understands it not, then comes the wicked
one and catches it away, that which was
sown in his heart.
And this is he which received seed by
the wayside.
But he that received the seed in stony
places, the same as he that hears the
word, and he receives it with joy at
once.
And yet he has not root in himself.
And thus he abides for just a while.
For when tribulation or persecution arises because of
the word, by and by he's offended.
He also that received the seed among the
thorns is he that hears the word and
the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of
riches, choke the word and he becomes unfruitful.
But he that received the seed into the
good ground is he that hears the word,
understands it, and bears fruit and brings forth
some hundred, some sixty, some thirty.
Now, Luke also tells us of this parable
and Luke gives us a few more words
of Christ concerning it.
First of all, he tells us that the
field is the word.
He that sows is the son of man.
The field is the world.
The seed is the word of God.
And he who sows it is the son
of man of Jesus Christ.
God's word sown throughout the world.
Some of it falls on the wayside.
The birds pluck it up.
The bird is the evil one, Jesus tells
us in Luke.
Satan immediately comes along and plucks the word
out of the person's heart.
So, there's an immediate rejection.
There's just no, there's nothing.
There's no response.
The word doesn't take root.
It does nothing.
In the second category, there are those who
receive the word with joy.
Oh, they get all excited, have a tremendous
emotional experience, but there's no depth.
And soon when trials come, persecution begins to
come.
They fall away because they have lacked depth.
They've never rooted themselves in the truth.
They've never really studied.
They've never really developed a foundation for their
faith.
The third category, and unfortunately I think that
this is the category that we would probably
have to deal mostly with, is that which
fell among thorns.
Lives who've received the word of God, there's
been that development within them through the word,
but thorns have grown up with it.
And the thorns ultimately choke out the life
that it becomes unfruitful.
And when we read that those thorns are
the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness
of riches, and the desire for other things,
we realize that that fits many of us.
How that our lives are not as fruitful
for the Lord as they should be because
we've allowed the cares of this world, that
desire for riches or for other things, to
choke out the fruitfulness from our own lives.
And as we look at our lives, we
see that we are not bringing forth that
fruit that the Lord would have us to
bring forth.
And so, I would warn you of this
third type of soil.
Let us take care lest we be burdened
down with the cares of this life, the
deceitfulness of riches, so that God's word is
not productive in bearing fruit in us.
Now, there is what is called expositional constancy.
And I think that it is very important
in understanding parables that we abide by this
law of expositional constancy.
And that is a theological phrase used in
homiletics, or hermeneutics actually, whereby
in interpreting scripture, if a figure is used
to represent something in one passage, every time
that same figure is used in a figurative
way, it represents the same thing.
In other words, here the field is the
world.
Therefore, in all of the parables where you
have a field, in each parable the field
represents the world.
The seed is the word of God.
Therefore, wherever you have parables that involve the
planting of seed, it is the planting of
the word of God.
And it is important that we establish this
expositional constancy, or else you can start reading
into the parables other things than what was
intended by the parable.
You have to remain true to the types.
Otherwise, there would be just total confusion.
Now, the question arises, after Jesus spoke this
parable, verse 11, or verse 10, the disciples
came and they said, Lord, why are you
speaking to them in parables?
Obviously, it was a beginning of a new
method of teaching by Jesus.
And He answered and said unto them, Because
it is given unto you to know the
mysteries of the kingdom, but to them it
is not given.
For whosoever hath to him shall be given,
and he shall have more abundance.
But whosoever hath not from him shall be
taken away, even that which he has.
Therefore I speak to them in parables, because
they seeing see not, and hearing they hear
not, neither do they understand.
And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of
Isaiah, which says, By hearing ye shall hear,
and ye shall not understand, and seeing ye
shall see, and shall not perceive.
For this people's heart is waxed gross, their
ears are dull to hearing, and their eyes
they've closed, lest at any time they should
see with their eyes, hear with their ears,
and should understand with their heart, and should
be converted, and I should heal them.
But blessed are your eyes, for they see,
and your ears, for they hear.
Now, why did Jesus turn to the parabolic
method, or the method of parables?
And be careful here, because a lot of
people, surface reading would say, well he's trying
to hide the truth.
He's trying to disguise it, so only his
disciples can understand it.
I would like to suggest to you that
first of all, that is the opposite reason
why a person uses parables.
The purpose of a parable is always to
illustrate a truth.
When a person cannot understand, when a person
cannot see, then you use a story.
You take something that is familiar with them,
to them, something that they can understand, and
you tell the story, and then by the
story you illustrate the truth that you're trying
to get across to them.
Now, the people had come to the place
where they were dull of hearing.
They were beginning to close their ears.
Stories are always attractive, and they are a
method by which the truth can be imparted,
as the story unfolds the truth, and you
can see it in a parallel form.
And the purpose of parables are never really
to hide.
The purpose of illustrations, and a parable is
an illustration.
It is not to hide the truth, but
it is to subtly reveal the truth in
such a way that you can understand.
It's to draw attention, and any good speaker,
when he realizes he's beginning to lose his,
the attention of the hearers, will say, now
let me tell you a story.
Everybody wakes up, oh, a story, a story.
You know that it is a means of
attracting attention, and you also know that it
is a means of illustrating a truth in
a very subtle way, because now they see
it.
Though they may have closed their eyes, maybe
they don't want to see, but suddenly they
see it.
And this happened with Jesus and the Pharisees,
as he was later on using some of
the parables, he was nailing them, and then
all of a sudden, oh, wait a minute,
that was against us.
Ooh, you know, and they realized that he
was speaking these parables against them, but he
was coming at them in a way that
he was just telling a story, but suddenly
they saw that it was directed towards them,
and the truth would hit.
And of course, they would become angry when
they saw, hey, he really trapped us there,
wiped us out with that one, you know.
And so Jesus, because of the dullness of
their hearing, because of the blindness of their
eyes, because of the attitude, he now turns.
He will still seek to reveal the truth.
Jesus isn't trying to hide truth from men.
Jesus wants to reveal truth to man.
But if a man cannot take it straight,
then he will couch it in an illustration
in order that they might catch the parallel
and still get the truth.
So this is why he began to adopt
the form of parables.
Therefore, he said, verse 17, many prophets and
righteous men have desired to see those things
which you see, and they have not seen
them.
You hear those things which you hear, and
they have not heard them.
And then he explained to them the parable
of the sower.
Now, in verse 24, another parable he put
forth unto them, saying, the kingdom of heaven
is likened to a man which sowed good
seed in his field.
But while men slept, his enemy came and
sowed tares.
Now, here is seed that is being sown,
but it is definitely declared that it's bad
seed, the tares among the wheat, and he
went his way.
And when the blade was sprung up and
brought forth fruit, then there also appeared the
tares.
So the servants of the household came and
said, Sir, did you not sow good seed
in your field?
Where did these tares come from?
And he said unto them, An enemy has
done this.
And the servant said unto him, Shall we
go out and gather them up?
And he said, No, lest while you are
gathering up the tares, you also root up
some of the wheat.
Let them both grow together until the harvest.
And in the time of harvest, I will
say to the reapers, Gather ye together first
the tares, and bind them in bundles to
burn them, but gather the wheat into my
barn.
Now, Jesus is beginning to show that the
kingdom of heaven, the church, is not going
to be a perfect representation.
That there are going to arise within the
church that which is not true, that which
is not genuine, that which is false.
The tares will be there with the wheat.
There will be that seed that falls on
the stony ground.
There will be the seed that falls among
thorns.
There will be those that will be unfruitful.
And as far as the tares are concerned,
there will be even worse than those that
are unfruitful.
There will be those that will grow up
within the church system.
There will come into the church system within
the kingdom of heaven that which is manifestly
wrong.
And rather than rooting it out, let them
grow together until the harvest, until the end,
and then gather the tares and put them
in the fire and burn them, but the
wheat into the barn.
So that into the system of God's kingdom,
there will come that which the enemy has
planted.
And God knows there are enemies to the
cause of Christ in the church today.
I cannot, for the life of me, understand
those men who are in the pulpits across
the country today who do not believe that
the Bible is God's inspired word.
What are they then teaching?
Why are they in the pulpit?
If they do not believe the word of
God to be the word of God, if
they do not believe the Bible to be
divinely inspired of God, then what are you
teaching the people?
And there are tares that are growing with
the wheat.
And it upsets me because every time you
get some kind of an article in the
paper that deals with controversy, you can always
find some stupid liberal theologian that will come
with some position against those who are evangelical
and all, and will make all of these
derogatory statements against anyone who has a fervent
love for Jesus Christ.
And yet, you know, Dr. So-and-so,
the pastor of such a church, you know,
declares, well, it's just, you know, a fad
among the young people.
It'll all pass, you know.
And this kind of, you know, I don't
understand.
Well, the Lord says, let them grow.
Now, you see, if I were God, I
wouldn't let them grow together.
I'd say, go out and get rid of
them, you know, wipe them out.
But God has his reasons, and the Lord
is warning us here.
Now, another parable he put forth unto them,
saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened to
a grain of mustard seed, which a man
took and sowed in his field, which indeed
is the least of all seeds.
But when it is grown, it is the
greatest among the herbs.
Now, most of your herb plants are very
small.
You know, you grow them in little boxes
in your windowsill.
But of all the herb plants, the mustard
is the biggest.
And, of course, mustard plants can get as
high as the pulpit here.
It's the biggest of the herbs that you
grow.
But Jesus said concerning this particular mustard seed
that it became a tree.
Now, that's an abnormality.
So that the birds of the air come
to lodge in the branches thereof.
Now, there are those expositors who say that
this is a parable that is illustrating how
that the kingdom of heaven will have a
small beginning.
Jesus is going to start with his twelve
disciples.
But as they have preached the gospel, the
influence of the gospel is going to spread
until it is a great tree and the
birds of the air can come and nest
in it.
So that glorious influence of the gospel, as
it gradually spreads from just a very small,
humble beginning as a small little mustard seed,
but grows into a great tree.
Problems.
In expositional constancy, what are the birds?
They are the ones, the evil ones, who
came and plucked up the seed so it
could not take root, could not grow.
From this expositional constancy, birds are always used
in a bad sense in your analogies or
in your comparisons.
So, in as much as in the previous
parable, he pointed out that there were going
to be tares that are going to be
growing along with the wheat in the kingdom.
He is only further illustrating the same thing
as the kingdom of heaven is like a
mustard seed, but somehow it has abnormal growth.
It grows bigger than what it really is
intended to be.
The true kingdom of heaven is, well, let
me just say this.
I think that the world council of churches
is the wild mustard seed that's grown abnormally
out of proportion.
It's a monstrosity.
And every bird of heaven lodges in its
branches.
And if you can think of any evil,
vile thing to support, notify them.
They'll be glad to do it.
But I believe that that's exactly what Jesus
is warning us about.
That there will be this abnormal forced thing
of man, not representative of the true righteous
kingdom of heaven.
And it will become a shelter for all
kinds of evil purposes as the church has
been used today as a shelter for all
kinds of evil purposes.
Read Reader's Digest this month.
If you are questioning what I'm saying about
the world council of churches, that doesn't make
your blood boil.
You're dead.
Now, another parable he's spoken to them.
The kingdom of heaven is likened to leaven,
which a woman took and hid in three
measures of meal till the whole was leavened.
Now, again, there are two interpretations.
The first is that the kingdom of heaven
being like leaven, leaven having this unique, uh,
capacity of permeating a whole loaf.
All you do is take your little starter
and you mix up a new batch of
dough and you take a starter that is
a piece from the last batch that's already
fermented.
And you put it into the new batch
of dough and this little batch of leaven,
the fermented from the old loaf, will permeate
and the whole loaf will become permeated with
the leavening process of just a little leaven
hid in this measure of meal, three measures,
it'll leaven the whole thing.
And so, the church is going to have,
though it starts very small, is gradually going
to develop and grow until it influences the
whole world for good.
And they teach that this will be the
influence of the church.
It will ultimately permeate and influence the entire
world.
So, it starts off just so small, but
yet this effect of the gospel in permeating
the whole world.
As I look at the world today, I
cannot honestly rejoice for the tremendous effect that
the world has received from the influence of
the church.
I look at a sick world, a world
that seems to me is getting sicker every
day.
I have difficulty with that particular interpretation also,
because leaven is always used in the scripture
as a type of sin.
Jesus said to his disciples, beware of the
leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.
Paul, writing to the Galatians concerning the problems
that were existing there, said, don't you know
that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?
Writing to the Corinthians concerning an incestuous relationship,
he said, purge out the old leaven.
And always leaven is used expositionally as a
type of evil, of sin, because leaven is
actually the process of deterioration by rotting.
And thus it makes a beautiful type of
sin that has a way of permeating the
total person.
It has a way of rotting.
It has a way of destroying.
Its influence is permeating and rotting, not destroying
necessarily, but rotting and permeating.
So the other interpretation is that Jesus is
giving a series of parables in which he
is illustrating the same truth or making the
same warning all the way along, that the
church is not going to be perfect, that
there will come into the church evil influences
that will actually permeate themselves through the entire
church.
Now, I would like to suggest historically that
this indeed has happened and that even we
ourselves are not totally devoid of the leavening
influence of the Babylonian religion that was introduced
into the church by Constantine.
There was introduced into the church this leavening
agent back at the time of Constantine as
he sought to bring together the pagan world
in Christianity by bringing the pagan holidays, the
pagan celebrations and the pagan rituals and all
right into the church, taking from the old
ancient mystery Babylon religion and incorporating that into
the church.
It was leaven and it began to leaven
the whole lump until it is, you can
point around to the church today and you
can see all kinds of remnants of that
ancient Babylonian religion that even we ourselves are
not totally free of.
I say that because we still celebrate Christmas
and Easter, which have their pagan origins, not
Christian origins.
It's a part of the leaven that leavened
the whole lump.
Now, all of these things, Jesus spoke to
the multitude in parables and without a parable,
he did not speak unto them that it
might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the
prophet saying, I will open my mouth in
parables.
I will utter things which have been kept
secret from the foundation of the world.
Then Jesus sent the multitude away and went
into the house and his disciples came into
him and they said, declare to us the
parable of the tares of the field.
And he answered and said unto them, he
that soweth the good seed is the son
of man.
So you have now your expositional constant.
The field is the world expositional constant.
The good seed are the children of the
kingdom.
Interesting expositional constant, which puts a whole light
on the other things.
But the tares are the children of the
wicked one.
The enemy that sowed them is the devil.
The harvest is the end of the world
and the reapers are the angels.
And therefore the tares are gathered and burned
in the fire.
And so shall it be at the end
of this world.
The son of man shall send forth his
angels.
They shall gather out of his kingdom.
Notice out of his kingdom, all of those
things that offend and then which do iniquity.
They will grow together.
It'll be a corrupting influence within the church.
It's the sad history of the church that
it has been corrupted by these influences within
it.
And he shall cast them into the furnace
of fire and there shall be wailing and
gnashing of teeth.
Then shall the righteous shine forth as the
sun in the kingdom of their father.
And whoever has ears to hear, let him
hear.
So, uh, quite heavy.
Again, the kingdom of heaven is likened to
a treasure hidden in the field, the which
when a man is found, he hides.
And for the joy thereof, he goes and
sells all that he has and buys that
field.
Two interpretations.
Number one, the kingdom of heaven is glorious.
It's like a treasure.
When you discover it, man, you know, you
go out and sell everything in order that
you might obtain that treasure by the field,
obtain the treasure.
The other, I preached some tremendous sermons on
that interpretation.
That was before I'd been pastoring for 30
years.
That one has a serious flaw.
The doors to the kingdom of heaven are
open freely to every man.
You don't have to buy it.
You can't buy it.
It's a gift of God.
Again, what is the field?
The field is the world.
Who then gave everything to purchase the world?
Jesus Christ.
What then is the treasure?
Are you ready for this?
You.
Back in the Old Testament, the story of
Ruth, classic example of the law of redemption,
where Boaz ultimately purchased the field in order
that he might have the bride.
He told his brother, hey, you know, Elimelech,
our brother, sold the field that's coming up
for redemption, the right of redemption, you're the
guy.
He said, oh, I'll take it.
He said, well, here's a catch.
Whoever takes it has to take Ruth as
his wife to bear a child by her
for the family.
Oh, he said, my wife won't allow me
to do that.
He said, Boaz, why don't you buy it?
Boaz says, all right, I'll do that.
Because he was in love with Ruth and
he bought the field in order that he
might obtain the bride.
Now, in this case, the treasure is the
church.
And Jesus purchased the field in order that
he might obtain the treasure.
He didn't need another world, but yet he
came to redeem this world.
Now, you remember that when Jesus came, Satan
took him into a high mountain and showed
him all of the kingdoms of the world
and the glory of them.
And he said, all of these will I
give unto you if you will bow down
and worship me, for they are mine and
I can give them to whomever I will.
Jesus didn't dispute that.
It belonged to Satan because man had forfeited
it to Satan.
Jesus came to redeem it back to God,
but not by bowing down to Satan, but
by going to the cross and there shedding
his blood and paying the price of redemption.
And so Jesus purchased the world in order
that he might take the bride out of
it, his church, the treasure.
So the parable became even more beautiful when
I came to a real understanding.
And the next is of parallel.
The kingdom of heaven likened to a merchant
man, again the Lord, seeking goodly pearls.
But the interesting thing is, is that a
pearl to a Jew was not considered a
valuable ornament.
It was something that was prized by Gentiles,
not the Jews.
So when you come to this pearl of
great price, you're coming to really the Gentile
bride of Christ.
Or you're coming basically to the whole bride
of Christ composed of Gentiles also.
Basically, it is always basic Jewish, but composed
also of Gentiles who, when he has found
one pearl of great price, went out and
sold all that he had and bought it.
Now, Jesus isn't the pearl of great price
that you have to sell everything and buy
him.
The gift of Jesus is by free grace
to you.
He is the one who gave everything in
order that he might redeem you.
Now, again, the kingdom of heaven is likened
to a net that is cast into the
sea and gathered of every kind.
The sea, of course, is the, again, the
world of people, humanity, in an expositional constancy.
And so the net is cast into it.
And men gather, they pull it in and
it has every kind in it, which when
it was full, they drew it to shore
and they sat down and they gathered the
good into vessels, but they cast the bad
away.
And so it will be at the end
of the world, the angels will come forth
and sever the wicked from among the just
and shall cast them into the furnace of
fire and there shall be wailing and gnashing
of teeth.
Jesus said unto them, have you understood all
these things?
And they said unto him, yes, Lord.
Oh man, I don't understand them yet, but
it's interesting.
Then he said unto them, therefore, every scribe
which is instructed under the kingdom of heaven
is likened to a man that is a
householder which brings forth out of his treasure
things new and old.
So there are these glorious things that we
are constantly discovering in the richness in Christ
and ever discovering new experiences in the old
truths.
And so the faithful householder who keeps bringing
forth out of the treasury, these glorious things
came to pass that when Jesus had finished
these parables, he departed from there.
And when he was coming to his own
country, that is the area of Nazareth, he
taught them in their synagogue in so much
that they were astonished.
And they said, where did he get this
wisdom?
And how is he doing these mighty works?
Is not this the carpenter's son?
Is not his mother called Mary and his
brothers, James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas, and his
sisters?
Aren't they still living here?
Where did he get all of these things?
And they were offended in him.
But Jesus said unto them, a prophet is
not without honor except in his own country
and in his own household.
And he did not many mighty works there
because of their unbelief.
Self-explanatory.
So we pray.
Oh Lord, we ask that you by your
Holy Spirit will reveal thy truth to our
hearts.
Thy word is truth.
Lord, we realize that there is so much
to be gained through the work of your
Spirit in teaching us thy ways.
Give us, Father, a greater faith, a greater
knowledge, a greater knowledge of thyself.
Lord, help us that we might bring forth
fruit, hundredfold Lord, preferably.
God, let our lives abound with the fruit
of thy Spirit.
Root out, oh Lord, those thorns that would
choke out the fruitfulness from our lives, cause
us to become sterile.
Oh God, help us, we pray, to so
commit ourselves unto you and to the kingdom
that we will seek first, primarily, the kingdom
of God and your righteousness.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.