Amen. You can be seated. I would encourage you to turn in your Bibles today to Luke chapter 8, verses 1 through 10. Or actually, I'm going to be reading verses 4 through 10 tonight, or today. We specifically looked at the parable of the soils, or the parable of the sowers, it's better known usually, last week. But I said I was going to be talking about parables in particular today. Obviously, Jesus used parables in order to teach important lessons. We're going to start seeing now in the gospel according to Luke, there are going to be more and more of these parables cropping up. And so that raises the question, why? Why did Jesus turn from a straightforward preaching of the gospel to using parables, these stories? And we'll see if we can figure out why that happened and the importance of it to us. But before we do, let's go to the face or go before the face of the God who has given us this word and ask for his blessing. Please join me. Oh Sovereign Lord, as your word is preached, we know that a spiritual battle begins. There is a battle in the hearts of men that is raging, Lord. We know the evil one wants to turn them away from concentrating upon hearing, Lord. We know that there will be many distractions. Our minds are never so prone to wander back and forth over things of no importance as when your word is being preached. There are things that will be brought to mind that irritate us, things that will distract us. We'll suddenly begin thinking about what we have to do during the week, when in fact we know we should be listening to what you have to tell us, for these are the words of life, and where else can we go? I pray, Lord, that you would help me also, for I know that a battle begins in my heart, distracting me and taking away any any power that might be present. I pray, Lord, that you would not allow that to happen. I also know I can only reach ears, only you can reach hearts, Lord. I pray that would happen, that those who are listening would be struck to the heart, that they would be amazed at your work and the way that you went about it. In the meantime, Lord, give us ears to hear, and we pray this in Jesus' holy name, amen. Luke chapter eight and verses four through 10, I do remind you that this is the word of the Lord. And when a great multitude had gathered, and they had come to him from every city, he spoke by a parable. A sower went out to sow a seed. And as he sowed, some fell by the wayside. And it was trampled down. And the birds of the air devoured it. Some fell on the rock. And as soon as it sprang up, it withered away because it lacked moisture. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up with it and choked it. But others fell on good ground, sprang up, and yielded a crop a hundredfold. When he had said these things, he cried, He who has ears to hear, let him hear. Then his disciples asked him, saying, What does this parable mean? And he said, To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest it is given in parables, that seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. Well, as you know, last week we took a look in detail at the parable of the sower. This is a very important parable of the different hearts. We talked about how each one of those hearts that he spoke about, the soils, is present within the congregations. that gather to hear the word. Everybody hears differently, but we also remember that he used, he employed a new form of teaching, something that the rabbis had used quite a bit, using an example to make a point, but one that Jesus employs more and more from this point onwards in the Gospel of Luke. Christ teaches less and less in the synagogues. He teaches more and more in the open to crowds, and his preaching becomes, in one sense, less direct. less straightforward. So before we go on, it will help us if we understand why it was that Jesus is using these parables in order to teach the Word of God. First, what is a parable anyway? If you are a child who was raised in this church, you have had drummed into you a certain definition. What is a parable, kids? And Lee Meaning, thank you. If it wasn't for the Brunsons, what would I do? But that is certainly true. But now I want to give you a new definition. We've got another decade ahead of us at least. Well, maybe. Who knows? That's in the hands of God. But I'm going to give you another definition. This one is by C.H. Dodd. And I think it's very good. It's a metaphor. What is a parable? A parable is a metaphor or simile drawn from nature or common life arresting the hearer by its vividness or strangeness and leaving the mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application to tease it into active thought. I want you to have that memorized. I next, no, I haven't memorized, but it's interesting that Dodd points out that there is a teaching application here. Just by its unfamiliarity, its strangeness to us, and the obvious implication, well, this isn't about what it sounds like it's about. It's not about farming, for instance. It teases the mind into active thought. I've often found that when you deliver something to somebody straightforwardly, you know, just a very clear instruction, they don't listen. But when you include something odd, quirky, you know, a meme with a riddle in it, their minds, they can't stop going over it. I'm now recalling, there was a meme sent to me. I love dad jokes, so I'm on all the stupid dad joke forums that I can find on Facebook. But there was one that was sent to me, and there was a picture of a fish. with its tongue coming out, and then a loaf of bread. And I was staring at it. Now, the first panel had the interpretive key, and that was, this is agar. It was identifying the kind of fish it was, and indeed, you looked at it, it had the sharp nose, and I'm like, fish tongue loaf, I'm not getting it, you know? And then I, so I finally, I poured over it for ages and I couldn't get it, so I called my wife, who is the unraveler of all great riddles, and I said, what does it mean? She looks at it and she's like, oh, garlic bread. Garlic bread. I was like, oh, what a fool I've been. I had the key there right in front of me, but I couldn't figure it out. My mind was darkened, but I spent more time with that meme than I ever should have. Why? Because it was confusing. It was a riddle. It was something quirky. So that kind of thing will engage the attention of those who are listening in a way that perhaps simply saying garlic bread would not. Regardless of which definition we're going to use, the old one or the new C.H. Dodd one, the one central thing about parables that cannot be ignored is that as that mean, they require interpretation in order to be understood correctly. If they were to be understood at all, they can't be taken literally. I mean, it may seem obvious to you, but this needs to be stressed, Jesus did not intend by the parable of the sower to teach anything that people didn't already know about agriculture. It was because they were familiar, in fact, with the way of the sower that the parable could be used at all. It is intended, obviously, to be something that teaches a spiritual truth that requires interpretation. He's giving you these images in order to convey profound spiritual truths. But as we shall see, your ability to absorb that truth, to take it in and to really understand it, is going to be dependent upon your ability to really see the truth. So we've sort of answered this question already. Why did Jesus use parables? You're told a little about that in verse 10 of this chapter as well. But as is often the case, Luke only records for us a little of what Jesus said about why he was using parables when the disciples asked him. By the grace of God, Matthew actually records much more of what Jesus said about parables in his gospel account. So please go ahead, if you will, and turn in your Bibles back two books to Matthew, the first of the gospel accounts. We're going to be taking a look now at Matthew chapter 13, excuse me, and starting with verse 10. Matthew 13 and starting with verse 10. And for the purpose of talking about parables today, we're going to be looking more at this account because it has so much more information in it. So then reading Matthew 13 and starting with verse 10, And the disciples came and said to him, Why do you speak to them in parables? He answered and said to them, Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. But to them it has not been given. For whoever has, to him 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, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says, hearing you will hear and shall not understand, and seeing you will see and not perceive. For the hearts of this people have grown dull, their ears are hard of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn so that I should heal them. But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. For assuredly I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it. Now imagine, if you will, that you're actually in the circumstances in which Jesus delivered these words to his disciples. Jesus has been teaching, he's been doing miracles, miracles of healing, casting out demons, even raising the dead in Galilee, and now a huge crowd is following them. And it would seem that, apart from their problems, their growing problems with the party of the Pharisees, things are going very well at this point. The apostles were probably very pleased that their master's attracting large numbers of people to come and to hear him. And then he seems to abruptly switch track. He goes from openly proclaiming the kingdom of God and exhorting all to repent and believe in him to teaching in these parables and leaving people scratching their heads. Now, not only is the crowd unsure of what Jesus means, the disciples. are unsure as well. So they come to Jesus and they ask, as in Luke 8-9, what does this parable mean? It's not just that the people don't get it. We, who are your closest followers, we don't understand as well. And then Jesus answers, he says, 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 verse 11 of the section of Matthew we just read. And that is, as we said, because a parable requires interpretation to be understood correctly. The meaning of the parable isn't on the surface. It's about the gospel, for instance. In this case, the gospel is the seed that's being sown. And generally speaking, most of the parables will deal with the kingdom or the gospel. At some point, they deal with the importance of salvation, and they are going out to this covenant people. And he's using farming imagery because it's an agricultural people. A city image wouldn't probably have struck home with most of these Galileans. But the parable is unclear because they haven't been able to figure it out. They still don't see. What does it mean? Please explain it to us. It is possible for you to hear a parable, and the parable can be actually about you, and you actually miss it. You'd be so blind as to not recognize yourself in the particular story that's being told. The most famous example of that is probably 2 Samuel 12.1. If you would turn back with me. Keeping, of course, something like your folder in Matthew 13, we'll be coming back there. But if you can go back to 2 Samuel, and we have here a famous parable in the Old Testament, and it's Nathan telling David a parable. So 2 Samuel 12 and verse 1, But the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and nourished. And it grew up together with him and with his children. It ate of his own food and drank from his own cup and lay in his bosom. And it was like a daughter to him. And a traveler came to the rich man who refused to take from his own flock and from his own herd to prepare one for the wayfaring man who had come to him. But he took the poor man's lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him. So David's anger was greatly aroused against the man. And he said to Nathan, as the Lord lives, the man who has done this thing shall surely die. And he shall restore fourfold for the land because he did this thing and because he had no pity. Then Nathan said to David, you are the man. Thus says the Lord God of Israel, I anointed you king over Israel. I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave you your master's house and your master's wives into your keeping and gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if that had been too little, I also would have given you much more. Why have you despised the commandment of the Lord to do evil in his sight? You have killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword. You have taken his wife to be your wife and you have killed him with the sword of the people of Ammon. Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house because you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife. David is moved obviously initially by the parable, the story that Nathan tells, but he completely misses his real meaning until Nathan makes it clear. This isn't about two men and a lamb. It's about what you did with Bathsheba and then how you killed Uriah to cover it up. Nathan has to explain this parable to David and then David's eyes are open to this profound spiritual truth that's being conveyed in the parable. It's only then that he's brought to understand, really, the weight of the terrible evil that he had committed, unless he had been able to judge himself. I mean, he might have come to, well, you know, there are certain reasons. You don't understand, Nathan. The kings have to do these things from time to time. He could have made excuses for himself. But he had already condemned himself. He had said that somebody who would do something like this, something so evil, so greedy, so absolutely unnecessary, that that person deserves death. He had spoken the death sentence already down upon himself. And so there's far greater weight when he realizes you're the rich man, David, and he suddenly sees, oh no, I understand now the evil that I have committed. Had his eyes not been opened, he would have remained in the dark. The fact that his eyes were open was solely, what was it? It was the grace of God. was the grace of God to him to see his sin. The Lord sent Nathan to David, and he opened his eyes, and it was not some sort of native ability that David had that allowed him to see the difference. Now, Jesus answers the apostles in essentially the same way he says, it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. But to them, that is the multitude, it has not been given. The Father has sent me specifically, not to open eyes generally, but to open your eyes in particular, to explain the truth to you so that you might understand what remains a mystery to the multitudes. So what is the great difference between the disciples and the vast majority of the crowd? Well, the answer is the grace of God. given to them through the Lord Jesus Christ, coming and literally opening their eyes. What is it? It's God's electing mercy that's being displayed here. These disciples, remember this, did not choose Jesus, quite the opposite. In John 15, 16, Jesus says, you did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give you. And although the disciples were not worthy of it, please understand they were not more worthy than anybody else in Galilee. Despite that fact, they had been given grace. And they had been given the gift of faith to believe the great key of the gospel. The one thing that the Pharisees and the crowd unfortunately could not and would not grasp. And that is that Jesus is the Messiah. He's the promised one. He has now come. Peter's good confession in Matthew 16, 16 is very simple. It's just 10 words. But those 10 words are the difference between life and death. The 10 words are the difference between heaven and hell. What are they? You're the Christ, the son of the living God. That's the good confession of faith that Peter made. But Peter's faith didn't come to him, please understand this, this simple fisherman, because he was smarter or that he was better or more moral than other men. It was an undeserved gift. It was something that was all of grace. There's a trite little definition for grace. You've probably heard God's riches at Christ's expense. It's not because of anything that Peter had done. It's an unearned gift. And that's what Jesus told him. He said, blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because you're smarter than everybody else. That's not what he said, is it? Not at all. He said, blessed are you, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my father who is in heaven. And I have to tell you this, that involves us accepting that had God not revealed it to him, he wouldn't have known it. It was his grace. Why did Peter see when so many others, more educated, more wealthy, more noble, why did they remain blind to the truth? Calvin, As a great answer to that, he said, if it is asked why this privilege was peculiar to the apostles, the reason certainly will not be found in themselves, and Christ, by declaring that it was given to them, excludes all merit. Christ declares that there are certain and elect men on whom God specially bestows this honor of revealing to them his secrets, and that others are deprived of this grace. No other reason will be found for this distinction except that God calls to himself those whom he has gratuitously elected. Were it not for that grace, were it not for that mercy, all men would remain in darkness. Why do we believe? Why do we understand? Why do we see? Because God has brought us the light. He has given us that gift, and we didn't deserve it. Remember that. We did not deserve this. If you believe then, the same is true of you. You know that your faith in Jesus was a gift, right? I hope that's the case. Because there's nothing worse in this world, nothing so oxymoronic as a proud Christian. We should all be humble because we should understand that without the grace of God, I would have been lost in eternity. As soon as I exited this world, I would have gone on to eternal punishment, a punishment that I originally deserved. But instead, what have I been given? I've been given grace. I've been given mercy. I've been given eternal life as the greatest of all possible gifts. And it wasn't me who earned it. What does Paul say? He says, for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. We have nothing to boast about. So that is an incredibly humbling message, but at the same time, it should be an encouraging message. Because as Jesus tells them, whoever has to him, more will be given. So if you have that gift of faith, that as the gospel is preached and explained, you will grow in grace and in knowledge. That's what Peter tells the followers of Christ in his letter. But you grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's our calling. More will be given. but to those who haven't been given the gift of faith, their understanding remains veiled, it remains darkened. I have met very, very, I mean, guys who are so much better at Greek than me. They could, they can parse Greek, tell you all the declensions, give you the entire semantic range. Now, sometimes this word means just to be loose, but occasionally it calls upon being broken free, you know, that kind of thing, you know. They'll be able to give you the wide semantic range of the Greek word and say, oh, that's very interesting. But they have no idea what the Bible means. None whatsoever. Their eyes are completely shut. They don't believe that Jesus is the Son of God. They don't have the great interpretive clue that's absolutely necessary in order to understand it. And so the Bible is absolutely useless to them. Might as well be written in Arabic. You know, Arabic and there are certain languages that are very pleasing to the eye. For instance, I tried Arabic. I really did. I write to left languages. useless at, let's face it. I tried Arabic. I even looked into Chinese a little, which is another visually pleasing, I mean it's a pictographic language. Hangul is also, I mean to my eye, it's a pretty language, the Korean language. I don't understand them at all. They look nice. But they're darkened to me. I don't get it. You can actually understand the meaning of the words and not understand the meaning of the text. And that's the problem that these men have. What is going on? Well, Paul puts it this way in 2 Corinthians 4.3, but even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the God of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them. And that means you can preach the gospel all day long to the reprobate, those who are not chosen by God, not chosen by him to receive the gift of faith, and they will never get it. Paul says again in 1 Corinthians 2.14, but the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, nor can he know them because they are spiritually discerned. And he isn't spiritually alive, he's still spiritually dead. Jesus goes on to explain that like Isaiah, his preaching is the message of life to the elect. But it is the method of hardening to the unbelieving, the same sun the Puritans used to say that melts the ice, hardens the clay. And so Isaiah put it this way, and Jesus quotes him. In Isaiah 6, 8, also I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then I said, here am I, send me. And he said, go, and tell the people, keep on hearing, but do not understand. Keep on seeing, but do not perceive. Make the heart of this people dull and their ears heavy, and shut their eyes, lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and return and be healed. So the amazing thing is the preaching of the gospel, which is the means of life to the elect, is actually a curse to the reprobate. They don't repent, they don't believe, and they only become more and more guilty under it. But then Jesus turns and says, but you, you are different. because you believe. And why do you believe? Because you've been blessed by God. You've been blessed that your eyes see, you've been blessed that your ears hear. And the word you are hearing now, the prophets of old, that is the patriarchs, Abraham, and the prophets who came after them, Jeremiah, Isaiah, They would have rejoiced to have the full Bible. They would have rejoiced to see what you're seeing now, the promised one of God actually preaching the word directly to them. They would have rejoiced how it is wonderful now that you are seeing the fulfillment of everything that they wrote about. It's coming to pass. And how sad it is that we, whose blessings are even greater than the apostles, why? Because we have the full Testament now. We have it in our hands. We have the full counsel of God that we treated as so very little. I remember seeing a video of, it was several years ago now, but it stuck with me. It was of a house church and somebody from America had smuggled in Bibles printed in Chinese. Nobody in this house church, save the pastor who had an incomplete copy of the word of God in Chinese, had a Bible. And so, They are handed Bibles for the first time, and they are weeping. They're weeping tears of joy. They're holding them to their hearts. They're thanking God, because finally they have His complete Word given to them, that which they longed for the most, to hear from God, to see His wonders, to read about His grace given to mankind. Finally, they had the means to it in their hands. Just one Bible. made their lives full of light. Do you know how many Bibles the average American has? At one point, I don't know, the statistics have probably changed now with the millennials and the Zs and so on. It used to be five Bibles in every house, five. The majority of them, though, collecting dust, doing nothing. It's just a symbol that we have. Once in a while, maybe we went to it, We don't nearly treasure it the way we ought to, the way those Chinese Christians did when it was given to them. So let me give you a word of application. Actually, it's three words of application. It's very simple. God saves sinners. Who saves sinners? God saves sinners. Remember, that means you don't save sinners. I don't save sinners. Sinners certainly don't serve sinners. God saves sinners. God and only God, he chooses them, he calls them, he justifies them, and it's according to his good pleasure for the glory of his name. And that's a wonderful thing, because if he didn't do that, no one would be saved. If he did not save them, nobody would be saved. They would remain dry bones, dead in sins and trespasses, no matter how good our arguments were. If I was the kind of salesman who could successfully sell refrigerators to Eskimos in the depths of winter, even I couldn't bring somebody to spiritual life. No matter what, their understanding would remain veiled and darkened. And Jesus said in John 644, no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. Now it's interesting, I quoted that John 644 to somebody once when we were talking about what do you believe about salvation? This was on a fourth Friday, we used to go downtown before they started making sure that churches didn't have space there. Their excuse was, well, you can stand on the sidewalk, you don't need a booth. You don't say that to the vendors. You don't need a booth to sell your wares. You can hold them in your hands. Here, take my candles, quick. But so be it. I quoted John 6, 44. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. And they said, so you're saying Jesus was a Calvinist? And I said, no. You've got it the wrong way round. I'm saying Calvin was a Christian. Okay, electing grace is what Jesus and Paul and the prophets of the Old Testament taught. So in preaching the electing grace of God, Calvin was simply repeating what Christ himself had proclaimed. He wasn't saying anything new. Now for us, this is good news. Why is this good news? Not only because it means that God will bring in his people, that nobody will be left out who should have been saved at the end of time, but it means we have such freedom to preach wherever we are. God has His elect there in every nation, amongst every tribe, in every tongue. And all we need to do is preach the gospel to call them to Christ. Then they will hear their Master's voice. And they will come to Him because they are His sheep, because He chose them before the beginning of time. So 1 Corinthians 3.5, who then is Paul and who is Apollos, but ministers through whom you believed as the Lord gave to each one. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither he who plants is anything nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. It's God who does that amazing work of bringing forth that fruit of the harvest. But what do we have to do? I mean, the word of God tells us in Psalm 104 that it's God who causes the grass to grow. But what farmer would lay in bed and say, well, I want a harvest of hay at the end of the year, but it's God who causes the grass to grow. So I'm just going to sit in bed all day or lay in bed all day. Would he have grass at the end of the day? And the answer is no, of course not. Why? Because God ordains the means as well as the ends. You planting the gospel seed, like the sower did, is the means that God has ordained. And what freedom you have, because you can go out and know that God is gonna cause that seed to do the work that it was ordained for. He'll bring forth that increase. I remember, I've said this before, I heard a sermon, and it brought me to life. It was amazing. I saw for the first time my own sinfulness. Like David, when he was confronted by Nathan, oh, that's me. I'm the black-hearted, sinful, stony-hearted, rotten creep. And I came to that saving faith in the Lord. What was it that did the work? It's the effectual calling of the Holy Spirit. I've said before, I went back and listened to the sermon. I expected it to be the greatest sermon that has ever been preached. I was like, it's a good sermon. It's not the great sermon that I expected it would be, but what was it that happened? The word came forth with the effectual calling power of God to somebody whom God had chosen, not because I was good, but when I was an enemy, when I was a rebel. You can do the same thing that that preacher did using the radio, using your own words, or on Facebook, or on even Twitter. You can use, I mean, you got the certain number of words you can use, but you can actually get the gospel into the number of characters. So do it. Stop being scared. The word has been given to you not to hold onto, but to share with others. One of the wonderful things about those Chinese Christians who loved the Bible so much was now they had finally been given something that they could share freely with others to read from it. And it's a wonderful thing that it's a gift that when given away, multiplies and increases. So let's be giving away that word of God, knowing that God will call those whom he has chosen absolutely. Incidentally, this always happens. The child you're going to baptize is going to But let's go ahead and pray. God, our gracious Father, we thank you, Lord, that you are a God who has appointed both the means and the ends. You are the God who gives grace to all of his children. Lord, there are so many who are offended, deeply offended, by your gospel grace, and it makes no sense whatsoever. Because if it was up to us to choose you in the power of the natural man, our understandings, as Paul said, would remain darkened. A veil would remain over us. We might know what the words meant, but we wouldn't understand the meaning of the text. Help us, O Lord, to remember that, to be humble, Lord, therefore. And when we go forth, let us go forth with zeal. knowing that you are the one who brings the increase, knowing and confessing God saves sinners. And thank you for doing that in our lives. We pray these things in Jesus' holy name.