You know, this is a remarkable book, the Bible, because you have so many things that are written by so many different people, and yet they all overlap and kind of mesh together. And the more I study it, the more I'm fascinated by it. And the Gospels, of course, are no exception. We could read about the parables in a variety of places. We're reading in the book of Matthew. We're doing these seven parables out of the book of Matthew. But we could have just as easily done it out of the book of Luke. We could have just as easily done it out of the book of Mark. But Mark and Luke have a different presentation of it, which is kind of cool. It is clear in the book of Matthew that half of these parables were said to this large multitude, and half of the parables were talked about directly to the disciples. in a separate kind of meeting. Was that directly afterwards and so forth? Well, if you read Mark, you would indicate no. They would really have been in kind of maybe two different times. But The truth is they say the exact same thing, so the information is the same. And so I was reading about how people are constantly going back to, well, you know, there's all these inconsistencies in the Bible, and I find the inconsistencies to be the most interesting part of the whole entire narrative, is that we have the same information, but, you know, This person's telling you when it happened from his perspective, and another person's taking it from his perspective. And I think that that's a good thing, not a bad thing, is my point. And we see it in the Old Testament as well. We see it, for example, in Kings and Chronicles, kind of the same idea. We're talking about the same event, but just reported in a little bit of a different way. So it's kind of crazy that we get all worked up about stuff that really we probably don't need to get all worked up about, I guess is what I'm trying to say. So the last time we were together, we covered the parable of the sower, the parable of the soils, depending on how you want to look at it. And basically in this parable, Jesus is doing this to the multitudes, and then he explains it to his disciples. So it is likely, if not highly likely, that that was done on one occasion. Then the next couple of parables that we're going to look at were done at a different occasion. And then the final ones we're going to look at were actually done privately with his disciples. And Again, we don't know what the exact timing of all of this was, and frankly, I don't care. What I'm interested in is really what he was trying to give us and proceed and so forth. So in the parable of the sower, we see seed being tossed out, and he says some of it falls on the ground, some of it falls on the rocks, some of it falls on the thorns, some of it falls on good soil, and it's only the the seed that falls on the good soil that really is worth talking about because all the others basically are going to just be thrown out. And so then he gets into this parable, he says, and he presented another parable to them saying, this is in verse 24 of chapter 13, I'm sorry, I should have actually said that. So Matthew 13, starting in verse 24, he says this. He presented another parable to them saying, now, There's no reason to believe that this wasn't just following what he had said to the people when he gave the parable of the sower, but it could very well have been at a wholly different time. Because we see the sower in the first part of the chapter, verses 1-9, then his explanation is done privately, and now it comes back and it says he presented another parable to them. We don't know the timing. Was this right at the end? But there is no question that these two are talking, that they have to be thought of together. Because in the parable of the soils, he's talking about the fact that there's going to be good seed that is ultimately going to grow, and it's going to have multiple-fold results, 30-fold, 60-fold, 100-fold. And now it says he presented another parable to them, saying, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. So this is all about, he's out there and he's doing it the right way. So he has sowed the seed, he's done it the right way, and then it says this, and remember, all of these parables are to tell us what the kingdom of heaven is like. That's what it's all about. It tells us that over and over. This is like the kingdom of heaven. This is like, you know, so again, here he says this again, he says, that the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed tares also among the wheat and went away. And when the wheat sprang up and bore grain, then the tares became evident also. And the slaves of the landowner came and said to him, sir, Did you not sow good seeds in your field? How then does it have tears? In other words, what they're asking there is, was the seed contaminated? That's really the issue here. Was the seed contaminated? Because if you know anything about planting, one of the things that you have to be very careful of is that you don't get weed seeds in with your good seeds. You don't want that to happen because if you do, obviously this is exactly what's gonna take place. But what he says to him is, no, no, that's not what happened. And listen to what he says. He says, and he said to them, an enemy has done this. And the slave said to him, well, do you want us then to go up and gather them up? Speaking of the tares. And he said, no, because if you gather up the tares, you might uproot the wheat with them. Now, how is that possible? Well, again, if you know what he's talking about here, wheat is kind of a stalky kind of thing, and tares are kind of a stalky kind of thing. A, it's hard to tell them apart at this point before they actually bear any seed. So they kind of grow up together. The other thing that makes it, when I was doing a little research last night on this, actually, When the weeds or the tears are are sowed at about the same time. In other words, the seed kind of gets into the other seed somehow, either by someone infiltrating the seed, as is the case here, or if it just was mixed together. What happens is that the roots of the tares get caught up in the roots of the wheat. So if you start pulling out the tares, well, then you're going to absolutely pull out the wheat because there's really no way to unwind the the connection. Does everybody understand that? So that's kind of what he's saying here. He says, allow both to grow together until the harvest. And in the time of the harvest, I will say to the reapers, first gather up the tares, bind them into bundles and burn them up, but gather the wheat into my barn. So what he's saying here is there's going to be a separation. And that's an important thing because he's going to not only do this once, but he's going to do this twice. He's going to say, he's going to give two parables that basically say the same thing. The parable of the dragnet, or the parable of the separation actually, or the fishes, parable of the fishes, is really all about that same identical thing. You bring them all up together and then you figure out what's good and what's not good. And what I find really interesting about this is he doesn't explain this to the people. He just gives this parable and just sort of leaves them there. You know, and says, this is the parable, you figure it out, basically. Keeps on going and he says, and he presented another parable to them saying the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed. which a man took and sowed in his field. And this is smaller than all seeds." Now, that's not actually correct. There are seeds that are smaller than a mustard seed. An orchid seed, for example, is the smallest thing I've ever seen in my entire life. It's almost It's almost powder. But what he's talking about here is he's talking about those plants which are planted in a row and not just flowers and things like that. So of all of those kind of plants, and we'd be talking about all the different kind of plants that you can think of, The mustard seed is the smallest seed. It's actually this just itty-bitty little thing. Like I said, there are smaller seeds for flowers and other things, but when it comes to things that are grown in a harvest kind of thing, in a field, excuse me, that's what I meant, those that are grown in a field, he says this is the smallest seed. And so what he's trying to bring out here is that you understand that this is seemingly insignificant. But a mustard seed, if you've ever seen a mustard plant, have any of you ever seen a mustard plant? In Israel, when we were in Israel, we went by an area where the mustard was actually being grown. I had never seen that before. I had gone to Israel. I've subsequently seen it over in California as well now. But what was fascinating to me was how tall these plants were. I mean, what they look like is gigantic corn stalks. I mean, they're probably 10, 12, 15 feet high, maybe not 15, but certainly 10, 12. They're way bigger than the people that were out there working. And they bush out So they become almost like small little trees, in reality, and then branched out and so forth, such that I guess you could have birds nesting in them and so forth. I don't know that the farmers would want that to happen, but I guess that could happen. And so that's what he's saying here. The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field. And this is smaller than all the other seeds. But when it was full grown, it's larger than the garden plants or the plants of the field, actually, is what that says, and becomes a tree so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches. And so you think, oh, that's really cool. What does that mean? He doesn't know. By the way, he doesn't tell us either. And so we have to kind of, you know, go for this and so forth. But then he goes right into a second one and he says, and he spoke another parable to them. He says, the kingdom of heaven is like leaven. Now that's an interesting expression because leaven in scripture is not a good thing. Levin is related to things that corrupt, things that make bad. Jesus talks about the Levin of the Pharisees. He talks about the Levin of the Sadducees. The Levin of the Pharisees makes that which is true hypocritical, he says. He says they teach in a way that they are hypocrites, meaning that they are teaching something, but they're doing something else. That's what a hypocrite is. A hypocrite is someone who puts on a mask or wears a mask or becomes something that they really aren't. And so that's what he was accusing the Pharisees of. And so he was saying to the Pharisees, that beware of the leaven of the Pharisees. He also says beware of the leaven of the Sadducees. What were the Sadducees? Well, the Sadducees did not believe that the Bible was the word of God. So they basically said that there's all of these mystical things that you have to believe. In fact, there's a whole sect of Judaism, even to this day, that is basically like the Sadducees. because they believe in mysticism and the idea that that is overrides even the things of the Word of God, that the Bible is not really that important. It's really just sort of a guidebook for us, and there's certainly no reason for us to read the prophets, certainly no reason for us to read the Psalms and the Proverbs, as those are just one man's opinion according to the Sadducees. And that's why they're sad, you see. So the fact is is that They have this, come on. I'll just sort of let that one fly in there, right? But listen to what he says. He says, the kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three pecks of meal until it was all leavened. So again, Jesus is giving them an example here, but it's not like the leaven that we read in all the other places in the scripture. This is kind of a different analogy here of using that word, because the kingdom of heaven is obviously not corrupt. The leaven that we talk about with the leaven of the fadge, he also talks about the leaven of Herod too, which is interesting. It never really explains that otherwise. But Herod was, of course, the king, and there were the Herodites who were, I think that's what they called them. It's like a political party that followed Herod at that time. And it was a real interesting group that would twist the truth to make it fit Herod's objectives. We don't ever have that happen in our culture, certainly. We don't have that happening. That doesn't happen today, but it did then. Work with me here. It happened then. That was the leaven that he was talking about there. Paul talks about leaven. In this example, Jesus is saying the kingdom of heaven is like leaven. Well, what is he saying? Well, what does leaven do? Anybody who's ever baked a cake, or excuse me, a bread rather, not necessarily a cake, but anything that needs to rise. But when you put yeast in it, the yeast permeates the entire loaf so that it rises and becomes what we consider a loaf of bread. If you don't put any yeast in bread, it will remain flat, and you get matzo. So if you want matzo, that's great. But if you'd like something more than that, if you like something a little bit more What's the word? Fluffy. Yeah, fluffy's a good word. Yeah, there you go. You want something a little bit more, you know, pasty, fluffy, whatever word you want to use, then you have to add yeast to it. You have to add leaven to it. And that's not a bad thing. It just takes over the entire lump of flour and so on. So Jesus is saying that the kingdom of heaven is like that. What does that mean? Well, obviously the kingdom of heaven started out just to be a little bit. It starts out just as a little bit, but sooner or later, it is going to be the predominant thing in everyone's life. Ultimately, it will be the predominant thing. And that's what Jesus is talking about here. Because if you look at each one of these three things, he talks about the wheat and the tare. He talks about, well, we got to wait until the harvest. When he talks about the mustard seed, he says, we don't worry about the mustard seed when it's just a seed. We worry about the mustard seed when it's fully grown. So, The kingdom of heaven is not about now. The kingdom of heaven is about later. It's about when things get harvested. It's about when things get completely leavened so that the only thing that matters in life is the kingdom of God. And that's going to happen one day. When we read the book of Revelation, especially Revelation 14, it talks about the angels going out and and actually taking their sickles and reaping the harvest. This is exactly what he's talking about here. He's talking about the fact that there is ultimately going to be this one time, one day in time, where the only thing that is going to matter is the kingdom. And so the kingdom is going to take over everything, just like leaven takes over the flour and becomes bread. All these things, verse 34, all these things Jesus spoke to them in parables, and he did not speak to them without parables. And you read in Mark chapter four, go over to Mark chapter four. This is just kind of an interesting way of saying sort of the same thing, but said in a way I think is a little more appropriate. Mark chapter four and verse 33, and again, right after the parable of the mustard seed. And he says, and with many such parables, he was speaking the word to them as they were able to hear it. Isn't that great? And he did not speak to them without a parable, but was explaining everything privately to his own disciples. So we see that now is going to occur here in the Gospel of Mark, but also here in the Gospel of Matthew. But just like Matthew, because he was basically writing this to a Jewish audience, he reminded them that Jesus spoke in parables for another reason, and that was to fulfill Scripture. And he says, and so that it might be through the prophet, this is why Jesus spoke in parables, so that what was spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled, saying, I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter things hidden since the foundation of the world. You can read that in Psalm 78, verses one and two. So in that Psalm 78 prophecy, it says that he will speak not only in parables, but in proverbs or riddles. And that's kind of what he's doing here, these little things that he's doing. If you know anything about proverbs or riddles, they're typically like one sentence. That's what you get, one sentence, this, this, this, and this, this, this. If this occurs, then this occurs, and then you go to the next one. And that's kind of what, that's the way they did proverbs back in those days. And you can, of course, if you go to the book of Proverbs, you see 31 chapters of that. So Jesus is speaking to them in that way. So now, in verse 36, we see the disciples coming to Jesus and saying, hey, prof, we don't get it. We'd like an explanation. Now what's fascinating to me is that they don't ask for an explanation of this mustard seed, nor do they ask for a mustard explanation at 11. Maybe they just totally got those two. But they didn't get the wheat and the tares, so they asked about the wheat and the tares. And so, I love the way Jesus answered this. Jesus does not explain anything, if you really think about it. All he does is he says, listen to the parable, here are the characters, and we're gonna go boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, you figure it out. Pretty much what he did, because look at what he says. He says, and he answered them and said, the one who sows the good seed is the son of man. So, okay, explains who the sower is. Who's the sower? Who's the son of man? The Messiah. That's exactly right. And the field is the cosmos. The field is the world. So where is he sowing it? He's sowing it where? In the world, not just in Israel. That's the key. That's the key. He's sowing his word everywhere. His word is not limited to Israel. It goes on and is available to the entire world. We're gonna look at John 3, 16 a little bit intimately here today, because it's a verse that we quote without even thinking about what it's really saying. And so we're gonna look at that in a little bit, but let's go, let's keep on going here. He says, And the field is the cosmos, it is the world. And as for the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom. So, here we got the sower is the Messiah, the field is the world, and the seed that's being sown is you. That's who's being sown. You're the seed. You're the one who influences, because that's really what this is all about. So he says, you are the seed. And he says, and the tares are the sons of the evil one. That's well, that's anyone who doesn't trust the Messiah, according to Ephesians chapter two, is a son of the evil one. So we have those that trust the Messiah. Those are the good seed. And then we have the tares. That's everyone who chooses to just say no, for whatever reason. Now, what's interesting is, is we all start out saying no. This, One of the things I teach people when I teach sales people how to sell is I always explain to them the most important thing that you can learn in sales is that you always ask questions where the correct answer is no. Because people are much more apt to say no than they are to say yes. So we would teach them that instead of saying, would you like to have an appointment with me, that requires a yes, you would say, would you have any objections to having an appointment with me? That requires a no. It's just the same thing, but again, no is what we start out with. Have you ever heard a baby, the first word out of their mouth when you go to speak to a baby is yes, correct? No. No. First word out of every baby I've ever seen, including my own, was no. I don't know where they got it. I didn't teach them. They just sort of get it by osmosis. I don't get it. But nevertheless, that's where it is. So he says, those who are of the good seed are the children that believe, and those who plant the tares, those are the sons of the evil one. And the enemy who sowed them is the devil. So the devil is the one that actually sows these people into the organization. And so that's important that you hear what he's saying is there's always going to be people in your group that are not believers. that were sowed there for other reasons. But again, he's just rattling these off, you know, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. So the field is the world, the sons of the kingdom, the terrors, the enemy. And then he says, and the harvest, I love this, the harvest is at the, is the end of the age. And that is the Greek word. I own, I own, A-I-O-N. A-I-O-N actually is the word for the root of the word eternity. So it's for at the end, it's when things actually become eternal. And so, what age is he talking about? Well, the Jews would say he's talking about the end of the messianic age. We would actually agree with that, by the way, because the Bible tells us very clearly that Jesus is going to come back and is going to bring in this new age that we call the millennium and so on. And so, this is what Jesus is talking about. He's saying, look, when it all comes to a harvest again. He has this little rattle-off of what each one of these are. The good seed is the son of man, the field is the world, the good seed are the sons of the kingdom, the tares are the sons of the evil one, the enemy is the devil, the harvest is at the end of the age, the reapers are the angels. And this is his total explanation. Therefore, just as the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so it shall be at the end of the aeon. or the Ion, excuse me, of the Ion. And so this age or this time of eternity, the Son of Man will send forth his angels. They will gather out of the kingdom all the stumbling blocks and those who commit lawlessness and will cast them into the furnace of fire. And the place there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And the righteous will shine forth as the Son in the kingdom of the Father. He who has ears, let him hear. So that's Jesus' explanation of the wheat and the tares. Is that an explanation? I don't know if it's really an explanation. He just sort of tells us who all the characters are, really, at the end of the day. But he does tell us this, and that is that this is all about when this occurs. This is all about the end of the age. This is all about when it comes to fulfillment. So that mustard seed grows up, you don't worry about it as a mustard seed, you worry about it, you're paying attention to it once it's a full plant. The leaven is insignificant, but then when you mix it in, it ultimately takes over. And then when it fully takes over, that's when you know you have bread. So this idea that the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God is all about where we're going rather than where we are. Yes, sir. Say it real loud so that people can hear you on TV. Yes. So we talked about this last week. Tares grow straight up. Wheat grow straight up, but when the wheat have all the seed on them, they bow. Tares don't bow. So tares just stand straight up, they never bow, which I always thought was kind of an interesting thing, just sort of an analogy of we bow before God and those who are of the enemy don't bow before God. Jesus says, but every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Christ is who he says he is. So at the end of the day, we know which are tares and which are wheat because the wheat bear fruit. tears do not. You feel like you're the weed? Well unfortunately there's a whole lot of people out there that that get caught up in the weeds. And we talked about that last week, and the bad soils, because one of the soils is the thorny soil. And they get caught up. And a lot of it has to do with association. And it's hard to disassociate from the world. It just is. So, I mean, we live in the world. Let's be frank here, okay? They look similar. Yes, they do. Especially when there's no weed on them. I saw pictures. You can go online and you can see actually pictures of this. It's really kind of cool. Pictures of wheat when they bow. And then you can see this ones that are standing straight up. Those are the weeds. It's really cool. It's so cool to see that in, you know, live and, you know, you know, in these pictures that are on the Internet. So but yeah, it's it's there. I mean, I'm not a farmer. I don't want to pretend to be, but I can read the Internet. But at the end of the day, we are not tears. Those of us who are believers, it tells us will bear fruit. And that's how we know that we are believers, by the way, is that we do bear fruit. If you don't bear fruit, then that's probably because you aren't a believer. It's really just that simple. So at the end of the day here, what we're looking at is what have you become? Are you a mustard seed that grows up and ultimately becomes this great plant? Are you the leaven that basically goes in and infiltrates? And really, if you think about it, leaven has influence. That's what it's all about. Believers need to have influence. They should be influencing. Everyone should know that you are a believer. There shouldn't be any question about that. And what's fascinating to me is how many times, and I've talked about this before, when you make people know that you're a believer, how many people will ultimately come to you just out of the blue of the western sky and will say, Hey, Don, you know, I just noticed so-and-so is struggling with this thing. So, you know, what should I do? I mean, they're going to come and they're going to ask for spiritual advice from me. It happened to me yesterday. Happened to me yesterday. So, all I'm saying is that that's the way it should be. That's, you know, you should have an influence. You should be like Levin in the good way, OK, not in the corruptive way. And so that's really what we're kind of talking about here. It also says that the good and the evil are going to co-exist. Oh, yeah. The separation doesn't happen until the end. Until the end. So you could be standing right next to another. You could be a weed standing right next to a weed. And that's not going to get resolved until then. Yeah. Wait a minute. And let's take a look at that. Because on that, when you say net, you're saying that the that the wheat is going to kind of separate. But the difference in that is that the wheat will have fruit, and the tares will not. That's correct. And people can see your fruit. That's correct. But unfortunately, those tares are not going to get pulled out. That's exactly right. But the point I'm making was, there's fruit in wheat, and there's no fruit in tares. That's correct. Yeah, and by the way, when you are at a point where you haven't borne fruit yet, wheat and tares look exactly the same. They look exactly the same. They're the same height. They're the same width. They look the same. What's even more interesting is in these pictures I looked at, the tares actually have pods, which is fascinating. Now, what are those pods? Those pods are filled with seeds, but they're not good seeds. So the tares are bearing even more bad seeds. which is crazy to me when I think about that. So at the point where they actually bow is when we know that that's really weak. And I am convinced that there's a great analogy there, that we need to bow. We always have to be in that position where we're bowing before the Lord, where we're allowing ourselves to be humbled before the Lord. But God, who is rich in mercy for his great love, wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sin, made us alive in Christ. where by grace are you saved. So this idea that, and by the way, that's right after he says that in times past, we walked according to the course of this world, according to the power of the Prince of the air. So he says, you know, you are this person, this struggle, but God has made you alive. He has changed you. And so this is really the process that we're going through. One of the great problems that people have, and I'm convinced of this in everything, is they're not willing to allow the process to take complete hold. So, God starts to work on their life, and they go, this ain't happening fast enough. And that's the whole wheat and the tares kind of thing. That's really, actually that's more the rocky soil, the thorny soil. This is not happening fast enough, so I gotta find another way. And I see that all the time. But I think it's more than that. I believe that what he's talking about here is he's talking about waiting. Most people are not willing to wait. And Isaiah says it well, he says, those that wait upon the Lord shall rise up with wings like eagles. So you're not going to have this thing happen overnight. That's the point. I'm talking about the process of sanctification. That's exactly what I'm talking about, because that's really the issue here. You don't get sanctified and suddenly, you know, you're perfect. It doesn't work that way. It's like a newborn Christian, how zealous they can be for the Lord, and all of a sudden, as they start growing, the world hits them. It's like, whoa, all of a sudden, now what do I do with my zeal that I have for Christ? You know, you start with maybe, I get it myself, so I know what the feeling is. All of a sudden, there's a roadblock, and now where do I go? You gotta keep going over those roadblocks. Go around them, find some way of getting Yeah. So again, this is... But look at what he says. He doesn't just end there. Okay, this is important. He doesn't just end there. There's no indication here that this is now another time. Because if you notice, he just keeps right on speaking. So now what does he say? He says, well, the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found and hid. And from joy and from joy over it, he goes and he sells all he has and he buys that field. Now, remember what Jesus said just before that. He says that those that that are the tares are going to have on this this. What is the word? They will have weeping and gnashing of teeth. Did you know that Jesus is the only one who says that in the entire Bible? He says it seven times in the Gospels. Seven times. Did you know that hell is talked about in the Gospels 12 times? 11 times Jesus is the one talking about it. The apostles never mention hell, ever. Paul never mentions hell. It's fascinating. Jesus alone does it. Jesus is the one that talks about this judgment. And I think Paul says it best. He says, I don't talk about judgment because in the way in which I judge, that's the way I'm going to get judged. I don't want to go there. I'm just not going to go there. So he never went there, which is really interesting to me. But Jesus is not afraid to go there. Why? Because Jesus is the judge. That's why. So at the end of the day, we need to understand that as a principle. Jesus says the kingdom of God is like a treasure hidden in the field. So what do we know? The field is the what? Field is the world, okay? Which is an important thing that you understand. Whenever you read the field in the Bible, it's always talking. about the world. First time it's ever used is when describing Esau back in Genesis 22, I believe, or 23 or something like that, 25, somewhere in the 20s, where he says that Esau was of the world. It says that Jacob was pious and Esau was of the field. He was a man of the field. So this idea here of the world, we see it all the way back into Jacob and Esau, this idea of the world. We can talk about that. I'm going to let that one go, but I don't basically agree with that, by the way. I'm in the minority, believe me. But the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field. What does that mean? What, why did, first of all, why did he use the word treasure? Okay. Yeah. It's so precious, but, but let's talk about scripturally. What does treasure refer to in the scripture? And it only refers to one thing in scripture, which is really interesting. Only one thing. Anybody know? Israel. Israel. Only refers to Israel. Go back to Exodus first. I'll show you a couple of different places where this is. In Exodus chapter 19, in verse 5, It says, Now then, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, then you shall be a precious treasure among all the peoples, for all the earth is mine. You'll be a precious treasure. That's a great word because it's the word in Hebrew is sagolah, sagolah, S-A-G-O-L-A-H, sagolah. And sagolah is used in the scriptures on five different occasions. Every time it's used, it's talking about Israel. Let me give you another example, Psalm 135. Same word. And what's fascinating to me is that sometimes some of the different newer interpretations will actually change it to other words. It doesn't say precious treasure, but that's really what it is. In Psalm 135, in verse 4, it says, for the Lord has chosen Jacob for himself, Israel for his own precious treasure, for his own sagala. Again, in Malachi 3, last book of the Old Testament. And verse 17, it says, and they will be mine, says the Lord of hosts, which by the way is a repeat of what he said in Exodus chapter 19. And they shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts, on that day that I prepare my precious treasure, and I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him. Now, I bring this up not to be confrontational, not to be ugly, But what I find interesting is, in all of the original texts, the King James, the early New American Standard, which I use, they all say precious treasure. Sugala has always interpreted precious treasure. Who has a newer version, like the NIV, or the NLT, or some other version besides the King James? What's yours? The New American Standard says possession. Yeah, it says possession. That's the newer one. I have the old one. I have the original one. So what's interesting to me is, so it says possession, OK? What does some of the others say? In this particular one, I got the new B claims. It says jewels. It says jewels, right. Yeah, I've seen that one too. Yeah. And on B it says treasure possession. Yeah, okay, so it says treasured possessions, which is an interesting expression as well. So I looked up Suga Law in Hebrew. I went to a Hebrew dictionary. I looked it up in a Hebrew dictionary. In a Hebrew dictionary, it means precious treasure. That's it. It means the most precious, it means the highest pressured, it actually means su-g-u-la, la would indicate that it's of God. So it's a treasure at the level of God, is basically the idea. Or even God's treasure, is kind of another way you could put that. Because whenever you add a hef to the end of the word, it's just like Abraham, just like Sarah. It's the same idea. You add God to the word. So what they've done here is the same thing. So this is God's possession. This is God's treasure. And by the way, there's four other times. I just gave you three of them. So the point is that in each one of these times, we see Israel is the treasure. Let's think about that. So why is Israel the hidden treasure? Well, think about it. 70 AD, they get dispersed all over the world. Again, you know, the field is the world. They get dispersed all over the world. They're hidden all over the place. And yet, they're not dead. Yet, they're not God. They're not gone. And at the end of the age, God is going to deal with Israel, is what Jesus is saying. And that is not even a question. What Jesus is bringing out here is that Israel, the treasure, the precious treasure, is going to be revealed once again. They're going to have their place. in the kingdom of God. And it says, and from joy over it, he, the one who owns the field, or excuse me, the one who hid them, excuse me, which I believe is God, goes and sells all that he has. What did he sell that was so precious? What was the only thing that God could give? Jesus. Sold all that he has so that, to buy that field, to buy the world. So let's look at John chapter three, verse 16. Verse that everybody knows, everybody's memorized, everybody's got it. We memorize it so quickly, we don't even know what it says anymore. It never ceases to amaze me how people get so aware of something that they have no idea what it says anymore. John 3.16 is a good example of that. Look at what John 3.16 says. It says, for God, For God. So this is God that's doing this. Not anyone else. Not people. Not anything else. This is God. This is His choice. For God so loved the cosmos, the world, the field. He loved this field. Why did He love the field? Why did He love the field? Why does he love the world? Why does he love people? Because they were made in his image. You know, it's fascinating to me how many people don't, they'll end up in situations where they have children and they will estrange themselves from their children and that is their greatest hurt in life. If you estrange yourself from your children as your greatest, you can get estranged from anybody else in the world. You ever think about this? Get estranged from, you know, you have a friend, maybe your best friend, and then that friend goes, you know, you go your separate ways for whatever reason. And yeah, there's a certain grief and so forth, but there's not this pang of grief. I have been in family meetings because that's what I did was estate planning. I can't tell you how many times I saw husbands and wives, grandfathers and grandmothers, fathers and mothers, break down at my conference table when we had the discussion about their kids for any number of reasons. It could have been because they were estranged. It could have been because They had decided to go in a way that they didn't agree with and that created an issue. It could have been because they loved them so much and had such a great relationship with them. It was just the whole, they were just over, do you understand what I'm saying? It's a mix of different, but every single person I've ever met, they never forget the name of their kids. It's just like that's where they're at. I mean, it's just their children are the most important thing. And where do they get that from? They get that from God. Everybody. Because we were made in the image of God. And we have that familial understanding of Him. And that carries on to our own children and our own families and so on. And that's why it breaks your heart when you have no relationship with your family. or you have an estranged relationship from your family, whatever the word you want to use. And so Jesus is saying here that God so loved the world, the things that were created in His image, that He gave His only possession. He gave His only begotten Son. The only Son, the only thing that was of Him, that was born into this world directly from Him. Yes, we were created in His image, but Jesus was born out of God and was begotten. That's huge. Huge. So, for God so loved the world that he gave his only, yachid is what we'd say in Hebrew, his only possession, his only begotten son, and whoever believes, whoever believes, this is important, whoever believes, there's no in in the original text. There's no preposition. In the original text, it just says whoever believes him. whoever believes him. Now remember who was talking here. Who was saying this, and who was he saying it to? Who was saying this? Jesus is saying this. Jesus is saying this. And who's he saying it to? Nicodemus, the most important Jewish person at that time. He was one of the chiefs in the Sanhedrin, which is like, Let me see if I can give you, that would be almost like being a member of the Senate. Supreme Court maybe. Yeah, well it's bigger than that. It's a lot bigger than that. Jesus is saying, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. It isn't right. Whosoever and whosoever believes him. That's, believes him. So, what he's saying here is, Nicodemus, you need to believe me. John 3.16? Wow, that's crazy. Let me see your Bible. I gotta see that. That is crazy. That is absolutely incredible. Yes, you're right. Wow. And the whole thing is in black. Which doesn't make any sense because this is obviously everything that Jesus has said, but it's crazy. And again, this is why I hate these new versions. It's MacArthur. It's MacArthur, yeah. Exactly. MacArthur puts no red in the Bible. Well, no, he has red in the Bible, and then it turns black. Isn't that crazy? No writing at all. Yeah, well, that's just a choice that they make. I have another Bible that has no writing, not for any number of reasons, but the point is that Jesus is saying this, okay? And there's no reason to believe that he's not saying this. So again, we're gonna look at the word. For God so loved the cosmos that he gave, he gave, it wasn't earned, he gave his only, the only thing he could for, For what? He said that whosoever believes him shall not perish. The word there perish is the same word that's used for burned up in the Apostle Matthew. Same word. So, Jesus is saying to Nicodemus, if you believe me, you won't burn up. You will not perish. And listen to this, but shall have Aon, which is that same word that Jesus says, the end of the age, the end of eternity, shall have Aon Zoe, which means life forever. This is such an important verse. This is such an important statement that Jesus made. And what's important about it is that he's making it to the Jewish leader. He's saying to the Jewish leader, God so loved the world, dude, not just Israel. Your teaching as a Pharisee is that God loves Israel and hates the world. By the way, that was their teaching. But Jesus is saying, no, that's not the truth. God loves the world. He doesn't care if you're Jewish or not Jewish. He doesn't care if you're a guy or a girl. He doesn't care if you're slave or free. He doesn't care what you are. He just wants you to believe. And if you believe whether you're, you know, of this background or that background or this, who cares? Who cares? Because the key here is, do you believe? And do you want to fall out of this, of this, you know, this, this place of grace. And now go back to Matthew. That is a backdrop. Go back to Matthew and look at what he says about this hidden pearl. He says, in verse 45, he says, again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant. It's not like the pearl. It's like the merchant. Kingdom of heaven is like the merchant. The kingdom of heaven is about finding the pearl. That's what it's about. So the merchant wants to find the pearl. Listen to what he says. He says, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking fine pearls. Now, I find this a crazy example because Jews had nothing to do with pearls. There's no pearls mentioned in the entire Old Testament, not even one time. Not even one time. All of the merchants of the pearls were Gentiles. Every single one of them were people by the sea, which, by the way, if you read the book of Isaiah, we remember it talks about the people by the sea. It's always talking about the Gentiles. So again, they're the people by the sea. They're the people that are doing these things. But here's the magic of pearls. Pearls start with a grain of sand. which is worthless. If the grain of sand does not get inside of the oyster, it cannot become a pearl. So the grain of sand has to get into the oyster, and then it has to stay in the oyster. And if it stays in the oyster, the oyster itself will turn it into a pearl. But here's the beauty of pearls. Did you know that a pearl, unlike a diamond or any other rock, ruby, whatever, you know, figure out whatever you want to pick, quartz even. If you disrupt the shape of a pearl, if you try to carve into it, if you change it in any way, shape, or form, it's no longer valuable. It has no value. So you have to allow the pearl to be changed by the oyster because the oyster is what's impacting the pearl. Well, actually not the pearl, it's impacting the grain of sand. Well, the Bible also tells us that the people of the world are as the grains of sand. I love the Bible. It's so cool. So again, we see this this thing. So what is he talking about here? He's saying there is a place not only for the Jew, that's the treasure, the precious treasure, but there is a place for the Gentile. That's the pearl. But that pearl has to allow itself to go inside of something it's uncomfortable with. It has to go into something that's totally new. When you go in and you have to allow that to change it, not the other way around. So we have to allow God to change us. And so we see this, and then we become this beautiful, look what he says. And upon finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it. And that's what God does for us. And what was it that he sold? It was Jesus. Again, this is the whole point, is that he's bringing out this idea that God sold all that he had, he gave me. I'm all that he had. No, I'm not the pearl. No, you're the pearl. Yeah, you're the pearl. But you know what? He sold me so he could buy you. And that's redemption, by the way. That's what the word redemption actually means. Redemption means to buy back something. So that's why we redeem pawn tickets. If you ever just think about the word, okay? So what does it mean? It means that Jesus is the one way that God... So what Jesus is saying to his disciples here is this. There is a place for Israel. There is a place for everyone else. There is a place for all of us in the plan of God, but it's all dependent upon you believing me. Do you believe me? And that's why Jesus says to his disciples, do you believe me? Do you believe me? He said like five different times. Do you believe me? Do you believe this, Peter? Peter, do you believe this? I mean, you know, Thomas, do you believe now? You put your hand in my side. Do you believe now? It's all about, do you believe me? And so Jesus finalizes this whole thing by saying, again, the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet cast into the sea. If you know anything about the fishing they do over in the Galilee, they basically throw these huge nets out into the sea and they just cover ground, let them sink. They go all the way to the ground and then they sit overnight. And then the next day they come back and they drag, that's why they're called dragnets, they drag the nets out. And when the nets are dragged out, there's gonna be any kind of thing in them. There's going to be fish in there that they want to keep. There's going to be catfish in there. There's going to be eels in there. There's going to be all sorts of different things that they don't want. Those get thrown back. And so listen to what he says. He says, the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet. It's not about the fish. It's about the net. Remember that. The kingdom of heaven is like a net, not like the fish. So the kingdom of heaven is like a fish, excuse me, a dragnet cast into the gathering fish of every kind. And when it was filled, they drew it up onto the beach, they sat down and they gathered the good into containers, and the bad they threw back. It makes sense, if you think about it, they just threw them back, okay? And so it will be at the end of the ion again, A-I-O-N, This is his age, the eternity. And the angel shall come forth, take out the wicked from among the righteous, and will cast them into the furnace of fire, and they'll be weeping and gnashing of teeth. That's the second time Jesus uses that expression in this little soliloquy. And then he says this. Do you understand all of it? Actually, the word there is actually, do you believe all of these things? Do you believe all of these things? Now, here's the great, I love this. Do you believe all of these things? So what do they say? Yes. They don't even know what he said. Really? I mean, at the end of the day, they're like, yeah, oh, yeah, we believe that. Yeah, we get it. What they were saying was, we believe you. They didn't understand all that stuff. They really didn't. I'm not even sure they could even grasp it at this point. They didn't understand it, obviously, because when they came to the crucifixion, they were freaking out. But had they understood it, they would have understood that the crucifixion was a good thing. The crucifixion was what he was telling them had to happen. He said, this is why God bought each one of these things. He bought it with the thing that he could only buy it with, his own son. And so he bought it with his own son. And so these are the only things that he could buy it with. And so that's what he bought it with. And then he says, therefore, every scribe, every religious person, that's what that means, who has become a disciple of the kingdom of heaven is like the head of a household who brings forth out of his treasure things that are new and old. What he's saying is you need to understand this is about you accepting and believing what I say. And when you do that, you're gonna give everything, just the way God gave everything for you, you're gonna give everything for him. And so you're gonna give, you're gonna be like the head of a household who takes your treasure and gives it. Look, my kids are in college right now. Not once did I ever think about not paying their tuition. Not once did I ever think about not making sure that they were OK, that they were being taken care of. That's what a head of a household does. Now, if I didn't have the ability to do that, that's a whole different thing. But if I have, think about this, if I have the ability to do it and don't do it, I'm not much of a father, am I? So at the end of the day, that's what Jesus is saying. He's saying, look, in the same way that I gave to you and God gave to you, you need to give back to others as well. And then it says Jesus went on and visited his family and did all that kind of stuff and so forth. So the next time we get together, we're going to go, and we're going to actually go backwards now. Remember this chronology of the Gospels? We're actually going to go backwards now a little bit. And we're going to pick up this whole thing of Jesus and his family. We're going to talk about the sin against the Holy Spirit that he talks about and what all that means, and just some of these other teachings that are really not actually done so much in parables, but are there as a story for us to understand so we can grasp what Elsie teaches. So we're going to continue the teachings next week, probably for the next three weeks. I think it's next two weeks, actually. And then we'll move on from there as well. So let's end this thing and get out of here.