Introduction to the Parables (Matthew 13:10-17)| Adult Sunday School

Good morning, everyone. Glad to see everybody this morning. Everybody made it here safe and sound. It's always good to be in the house of the Lord, right? Be around the Saints, be able to open the Word of God, hear Him speak to us in our lives and to go about our business and to share the gospel everywhere we can.

Just want to thank you that you're here and everybody that's online, just appreciate you tuning in and listening. We're going to get started and we're going to go to the Lord in a word of prayer and we'll get started.

Let's do that now. And Jesus, Lord, we just thank you that you're an amazing God, that you saved us from a life of misery and that you've given us hope and an ability to look forward into the future and see that one day we're going to be with you in paradise.

We're going to spend eternity with you in the new heavens and the new earth. What an amazing gift that you've given us, Lord, and I pray today that you'll open the hearts of the Saints that would be able to receive your word and apply it to their lives and go out into the world and share the gospel with those that need it.

And we just give you all the praise and all the glory in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Why Parables Need Careful Interpretation

All right, we're going to be taking the next probably four to six weeks looking at the parables of Jesus. To be able to do that, I thought it would be good to just kind of set the table, do a little bit of an introduction to the subject so that we're all on the same page about it.

And I was thinking about this. When you think about a parable, what comes instantly to your mind when you think of a parable? For many, I think, at least the ones I've been listening to, it's a parable makes things simple and easy to understand.

That's what a lot of people think. It just simplifies the message. It's an easy story to know. I mean, a sower went out to sow seems simple to grasp, right? Not that complicated. But in reality, the parables are not that easy to understand because if they were, we wouldn't have so many preachers bringing a sit-down story time to their congregations rather than exegeting the scriptures.

We see that a lot today. In preparing for this lesson, I came across one example in particular that kind of sums up much of the problems of interpretation that we see in the parables of Jesus in the modern era.

I was listening to this so-called woke woman preacher. Here's what she said about the parables, about the kingdom. She said, the kingdom of God is like Pride Fest, like the drag queen who read delight-filled stories to children.

I don't know about you, but that's disgusting and it's repulsive. But you can kind of see how far we have moved away from proper interpretation of the scriptures in our modern day. You can thank postmodernism for that, which is a fundamental rejection of the inerrancy of scripture.

The modernist sees the old ways of digging deep into the scriptures, word, you know, looking at it verse by verse, study in context. They look at that as outdated. And an old way of doing it. They prefer stories over doctrinal truth, stories over doctrinal truth.

And you can study this drift. It's not something new. Over the last hundred plus years, starting with Princeton in the 20s, and then Fuller Seminary later on, you can see the decline. They started off pretty well in 47, but in 62, it was clear that the church in Ephesus, they had left their first, like the church in Ephesus, they had left their first love.

They began to move away from the scriptures as the only source of truth and their interpretations were falling by the wayside. But you kind of see what happened to Fuller is the same thing that almost every Christian college and seminary have experienced these days, a decline in the embracing of the scriptures.

An educational institution opens a lot of times with good intentions, don't they? They begin to hire presidents and professors who reject inerrancy. And before long, the students also embrace it. Then those same students, what happens?

They go out into their churches as pastors and teachers, and they begin to preach the same message and to deceive many into their style. This led to Rick Warren, Bill Hybels, and the emergent church movement that produced a deconstruction of the truth.

So you can understand with that kind of theology that the interpretation of the parables and other scriptures can be misconstrued. It seems like we have lost the generation, doesn't it? To this kind of deception.

We've lost the generation. It seems like to me, just as the book of Judges says in Judges 2 .10, all that generation also were gathered to their fathers, and there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord, nor yet the work which he had done for Israel.

We see this decline in America, don't we? It seems like we've lost the generation somewhere that loves and wants to follow after the Lord. And I think when we lose, or when a proper hermeneutic is abandoned, you can get any kind of interpretation of the scriptures that you want.

We need to keep focused in our study on the context of the passage and look at how the original listeners would have understood the passages that we're going to be looking at. Instead of story time, we've got to look at what the actual context is.

The Number and Purpose of Jesus' Parables

So just to think about the parables, there's 40 of them, 40 parables, and they're all in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and there isn't any in John. Now, if you read many books about the parables, you're going to find that there's many different numbers, right?

Everybody has a different number. There's 40, there's 45, there's 38, there's 39. And the reason for that is that some are explicitly called parables and others are not. And so some people categorize them as parables.

They may not even say that, okay? But the number's 40. And they make up roughly 35 of Jesus's sayings. And so just so you know, Jesus was not the first one to use these parables. You see the parables in the Old Testament.

There's a number of them there. The Pharisees used them to illustrate various aspects of the law. But Jesus used them to deliver new truth about the kingdom of heaven, new truth about the kingdom of heaven, which we're going to be looking at in this series about the parables.

They teach all about salvation though, the parables. You know, there's other ideas in there, but salvation is a primary component of them and the coming kingdom that we have spoken of so much in this church, in Hebrews and in the land, in Psalms.

This is the kingdom spoken of in these parables. And when you read a parable, keep this in mind that they primarily have one main truth. One main truth. Now, some might have another application here and there, but primarily the focus is on one main component, one main truth.

So the component is we shouldn't be looking for meaning in every last little detail. Shouldn't be looking for meaning in every detail. So what is a parable? Well, you may have heard it said that a parable is an earthly story with a heavenly message, right?

Heavenly meaning. A lot of people think that and that gets us to a certain point in our definition of a parable. It gets us partway there, but here are a couple definitions to consider from others. This one's from C .H. Dodd, and he says a parable is a metaphor or simile drawn from nature or common life, charged with a vivid or strange quality that is intended to provoke the hearer, the reader, into active thought.

Get that? And then MacArthur says this. He says that they are, it is an illustrative figure of speech made for comparison's sake and specifically for the purpose of teaching a spiritual lesson. I think to me that makes sense because the meaning of the word parable comes from a couple Greek words.

A couple Greek words. Para means something that comes alongside something else and bole is to throw or to hurl. Throw or to hurl. What's happening then is that a meaning that everyone knows is thrown alongside something that is unknown.

Two ideas are placed alongside each other for comparison's sake. Commonplace reality is placed alongside profound truth. That's what's happening in a parable. Parables seem simple, but without understanding, they were not easy to know the main point.

They were not easy to know. So in kind of laying the groundwork, we're going to be looking primarily at Matthew chapter 13 today, but we're going to skip around a bit in the beginning just to a couple locations and eventually we're going to land on Matthew chapter 13 verses 10 through 17.

And we'll begin to look at three questions that we want to answer today. Three questions that we want to answer today.

The first,.

Why did Jesus begin to speak in parables in the first place? Why did he do that? Because he hadn't done it in the past. So why is he doing it now? The second question we want to answer is why is truth given to some and concealed to others?

Why is that happening? And third, what did the prophets and the righteous men of old wish they could see and hear but didn't? Those are important questions we want to look at. So why did Jesus begin to teach in parables?

Why the shift in teaching from a straightforward style to a parable? So I want to take just maybe a 50 ,000 foot view of the kind of the first 12 chapters of Matthew just to lay the groundwork. And I want to start with John the Baptist because when he heard about all the miracles that Jesus was doing, he was in prison and he sent his disciples out and he said, go to Christ and ask this important question.

In Matthew 11 3, he asked them this, are you the expected one? Or shall we look for someone else? What is he saying? The people were expecting a king, weren't they? They were looking for a king. They were looking for the Messiah.

So they asked him very pointedly, are you the one? Are you the king that we've been waiting for? And the book of Matthew speaks of Christ as the long-awaited king, doesn't it? All the way through you see that Christ is being portrayed as the king that was spoken of so long ago in the Old Testament.

You have a king, you have to have a kingdom, right? Gotta have a kingdom. The kingdom is offered to the Jews first in the book of Matthew. We've read that. We're going to read it. But if you've read it, you've understood that.

The kingdom is offered to the Jews first, and Jesus provided many proofs of that,.

Didn't he?

Right from the very beginning, when he came on the scene, what did Matthew lay out? Didn't he lay out the lineage of Christ? Because he had to come from the proper line, and he traced that line all the way back to David and Abraham and said,.

Yes,.

This is the long-awaited king. This is proof right here that he is the king. Okay? And then what happened? He came on in spectacular fashion, the virgin birth.

I mean,.

That's,.

I mean,.

Who can deny that?

Right?

So it's another proof that Christ is who he said he was.

But.

The point is, is that the scribes and the Pharisees and the people that were around, they have known about the birth, because Isaiah spoke about it. In Isaiah 7 14, he says, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call him his name Emmanuel.

They knew a king was coming, didn't they? Right from the very birth,.

Though,.

There was instant friction, instant opposition to this new king, because what happened?

Herod.

Immediately tried to kill the baby. There's friction here, but that's, you know, the enemies of John and Christ were quickly identified. Who are they? He said in chapter 3 verse 7, John called the Pharisees and the Sadducees, you brood of vipers.

Not a great term. Then we come to the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapters 5 through 7. What's the sermon about? What's the sermon about in Matthew chapter 5 through 7? It's about the characteristics of those who enter his kingdom.

It's what he wants his disciples to be and to do, to be involved in the kingdom. He said, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are the pure in heart,.

For they,.

What, shall see God. These are the kinds of people who enter into his kingdom. These are the kind of characteristics he was saying. The way into the kingdom is through the narrow gate. That's what was said.

For the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it,.

Right?

We've heard that spoken of before. Jesus is the narrow gate, and few find it, but the broad road with all the false religions, what happens? That leads to destruction. All the false religions of the world leads to destruction.

That's the broad road, and I think maybe this is why the religious leaders of the day weren't happy with Christ. They weren't happy with him. They were on the broad road, and he was gaining in popularity.

He was gaining in popularity, much more than they were, because right after the narrow gate discussion, kind of throws a burn at him. It says the crowds were amazed, and said he was teaching them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.

He was teaching not as their scribes. He had authority. So chapters 8 and 9 demonstrate that King Jesus has power over disease. He has power over demons, and the power to forgive sins. He's demonstrating that he is this king that was spoken of long ago.

Chapters 10 through 12 are especially important to understanding why Jesus shifted his teaching to parables. Christ instructed his disciples not to go to the Gentiles, but rather to the lost sheep of Israel.

That was where they were supposed to go first, and what happened? He gave them authority over every kind of sickness and disease. What happened though? But instead of believing, they rejected Christ. They rejected Christ.

They were expecting their Messiah to come, to set up a kingdom of peace right then, and to rule and to reign with an iron fist. But that didn't happen, did it? Because they rejected him. Because of that, Christ told them there's going to be division now.

Matthew 10, 34 says, Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. From this point, it seemed clear that the Jews would not accept him as their king. You want to know about why Jesus began to speak in parables?

That's the beginning of it all. Their rejection of him played a pivotal role in his beginning to speak in parables. We come to Matthew 13 now. Let's begin reading starting in verse 1. Matthew 13, verse 1.

And let's kind of work our way down through this particular passage. Verse 1. That day, Jesus went out of the house and was sitting by the sea, and large crowds gathered to him. So he got into a boat and sat down, and the whole crowd was standing on the beach, and he spoke many things to them in parables.

He's popular. The crowds are pushing in to hear his message. We know that Jesus was in the north ministering up in Galilee, and in chapter 11, it says that he was up in Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum, where he performed many of his miracles.

So he's probably up in that northern region up there, in the Sea of Galilee, and the crowds were pressing in on him. But it says in verse 1,.

It says,.

That day.

What day?

What day is he referring to? What happened on that day when he spoke to them in parables? Two critical events took place, and we're going to shift now to chapter 12, verse 1. So if you'll drop back down to chapter 12, verse 1, we're going to read this verse.

At that time, Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath, and his disciples became hungry, and began to pick the heads of grain and eat. But when the Pharisees saw this, they said to him,.

Look,.

Your disciples do what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath. Here we have the fault-finding Pharisees showing up to criticize the disciples for breaking the law. These blind guides were more concerned with their own traditions than they were with the Word of God.

The Pharisees were called separatists because they were legalistic rule followers. We've heard a lot about them probably over the years. They heaped up man-made rules and regulations, and it broke the backs of the people because the burdens were just too heavy to bear.

Just too heavy to bear. I recently saw a video of a sheep, and the sheep couldn't get up. It was laying on the ground.

You know why?

Because it had 400 pounds of wool that had never been sheared off of it. And it's a vivid picture in our minds of the mountain of rules of the Pharisees that were just too heavy for the people to bear.

Just too heavy. God has one rule for the Sabbath. One only, and that is we're to rest. We're to rest. And he said, oh yeah, by the way, in Matthew 12, 8, he said, for the Son of Man is even Lord of the Sabbath.

So why are we doing all these man-made rules is basically what he's saying. That didn't sit too well with them, as you can imagine. And then Jesus had the audacity to heal someone. I mean, that's crazy.

Why would you do that? That's just something you shouldn't do. But that kind of seemed to tip them over the edge, honestly. Because if you look down at verse 14, it reads this way, but the Pharisees went out and conspired against him as to how they might destroy him.

Wow, really?

Your disciples are picking grain. You heal somebody on the Sabbath,.

And you know what?

Now you need to die for that. Yeah. That's hard to imagine. But right after this exchange, the Pharisees, we pick up the second event that caused Jesus to speak in parables. The first one was the Sabbath.

The second one here is in verse 22 of chapter 12. If you just drop down there. It says this, then a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute was brought to Jesus and he healed him. So that the mute man spoke and saw.

All the crowds were amazed and were saying, this man cannot be the son of David, can he? But when the Pharisees heard this, they said, this man casts out demons only by Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons.

This is a lesson for us all, isn't it? If you see a true miracle of God, not like the false fake healers today, but a true miracle, you don't attribute that to Satan.

Why?

Because that's the unpardonable sin, isn't it? The unpardonable sin that you can never come back from. You can never come back from. Sins of murder, sexual immorality, adultery, idolatry, drunkenness can all be forgiven.

But when you blaspheme the Holy Spirit and attribute the works of Jesus to the devil, it's game over. It's game over. People like the Pharisees who go to great lengths in denying Christ, it's mind-blowing.

It's mind-blowing. Their hearts were hard like concrete. They were defiant in the face of ultimate proof that Jesus was who he said he was. I believe they had deliberately attributed the power Christ used to cast out demons to Satan, even though I think they knew in their hearts that this is true.

But their hearts were so hard. They would not believe. Their motives were evil. For that they were damned to eternal hell. You don't want to hear the words Jesus used when he said of them in Matthew 12, 34, you brood of vipers.

How can you being evil speak what is good? So, Christ began to speak in parables because of the extreme opposition against him. That's why he started to do it. The Pharisees' rejection of Christ meant that they would no longer be able to hear the plain truth of Jesus.

That day was a turning point in the ministry of Jesus. He flipped from common preaching and easily accessible information to parables that would in a way hide the truth from them. The reason Jesus shifted into using parables was because Israel had rejected him and attributed his works to Satan.

But that's the why about it all. That's what happened and that's the shift. And it's not the purpose of the parables. For that we're going to look at our passage today, which is in Matthew chapter 13 verse 10.

So if you turn there, let's begin reading verse 10 of Matthew chapter 13. And the disciples came and said to him, why do you speak to them in parables? And here's the answer. Jesus answered them,.

To you,.

It has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. But to them, it has not been granted. Why do you speak to them in parables is the question the disciples asked Christ because it was a shift.

It wasn't something that they had seen before. Parable of the sower is in the first nine verses of Matthew 13. And so this is kind of right in the middle of that. They ask him, why are you doing this Lord?

Why are you shifting now to this teaching? And he says to you, disciples, it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. But to them, the unbelieving crowds, the Pharisees, it has not been given to them to know.

So there are two purposes in the parables, two purposes, to reveal truth to his disciples and all who follow after him and love his truth. It's to reveal that truth to them. But what about to the crowds and to those like the Pharisees?

It is.

To conceal truth from the crowds, to conceal it.

God,.

An amazing God, in his sovereignty, he grants some to come to know the mysteries of the kingdom and to others he doesn't. Now what happens? Man,.

You know,.

Bristles up against this teaching, don't they? They bristle up against it. They don't want to hear it because they want to take God off of his throne and make it man's choice. Newsflash,. God will do whatever it is he wants to do.

Paul in Romans 9 21 writes this, or does not the potter have the right over the clay to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? Does God not have that ability?

Of course the answer is yes. It's a resounding yes. He does have the right to do whatever he wants to do because he created us and he gave us life and he gave us a world. It's just like he said, Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.

He doesn't have to provide us reasons why he acts the way that he does. Can man do anything apart from God? Can man save himself? Can man keep the law? Can he do all the things perfectly well every time?

We learn in John 6 65 that that's not possible. And he was saying in this in John 6 65, for this reason, I have said to you that no one can come to me unless it has been granted him from the father. Granted, it's been gifted to you.

It's been gifted to you. Now drop down,.

If you would,.

To verses 12 and 13 of our passage today. Verse 12, for whoever has to him shall be given, more shall be given, and he will have an abundance, but whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him.

Therefore,.

I speak to them in parables, because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. That's a lot. To those who have a desire to know the truth, more is going to be given to you.

If you have a passion to know, God feeds into that passion, and you know more, and he's going to be given you more. Because where someone knows Christ, and they're not in opposition to him, it says they will have an abundance of knowledge.

They will have an abundance of knowledge.

Seek,.

And you will find, knock, and it will be given to you. But for those who desire to suppress the truth, even the knowledge they have, it says is going to be taken away from them. That's a terrible place to be.

Focus now on the last half of verse 13. I speak to them in parables. The crowds are seeing all that is taking place, but the reality is they don't really understand. That's the point of the parable. It reveals truth to some, and it conceals it to others, because of their unbelief.

They hear the parables being spoken, but they don't really hear. To the unbelieving crowds, they hear a story they can relate to. They understand a sower went out to sow. But at the same time, they have no idea what the spiritual meaning is.

Because you have to have spiritual eyes and ears to hear, to understand this kind of truth. And I think it can be considered as an act of mercy, because the more a person knows, the more they are accountable to that truth.

Right?

The more they are accountable to that truth, the rebellious, even while seeing the words of this book, they will not see. They may be listening to the message right now, but they may, they will not understand what is being said.

To drive this point home, Christ quotes a very famous passage from the Old Testament, and it's in your passage there in Matthew 13. It's from Isaiah 6, 9 through 10, in verse 14. In their case, the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says, you will keep on hearing, but will not understand.

You will keep on seeing, but will not perceive. For the heart of this people has become dull. With their ears, they scarcely hear, and they have closed their eyes.

Otherwise,.

They would see with their eyes, hear with their ears, and understand with their heart,.

And return,.

And I would heal them. What's going on here? Prior to Isaiah 6, there's the story of the parable of the vineyard. God plants a vineyard, and the people weren't doing anything in the vineyard. And so, he removes the hedges, he takes the protection out,.

And he,.

This is a reflection of that.

This,.

Isaiah 6 through 9, what we just read is a reflection of that. The vineyard, God's taken that protection off of that. Isaiah prophecy here refers to the spiritual decline of the people. They would hear God's word, but they wouldn't understand it.

So Isaiah goes out, he preaches day in, day out.

I mean,.

How would it be for our pastors here to preach knowing that they're not going to hear it? They're not going to grasp the knowledge. They don't know. That would be a terrible place to be in, but they would hear God's word, but not understand it.

And they would see his miracles, but not fully grasp what he was doing. They were spiritually blind and deaf, and because of it, they would be judged. Isaiah says that their hearts have become dull, which wasn't a compliment,.

By the way.

If your heart becomes dull, it lacks interest. It lacks interest, and it doesn't, you're not excited about what it's learning.

It's dull.

It's not receptive. But the word also means to become callous, or to make stupid. Notice that people make their hearts this way. They make their hearts this way, because, like the Pharisees, they chose to crucify Christ.

Didn't they? It wasn't something that God made them do. Their minds have become hardened by their own doing.

They have,.

They have fattened up their hearts, if you will, so much that it is no longer pliable to the truth being taught. No longer pliable. Look just below. It says, their ears scarcely hear. Their ears scarcely hear.

The Pharisees and the scribes have purposefully closed their eyes to the truth, but that word, scarcely. It's translated, it means that with great difficulty,.

They hear.

It is to become mentally slow to hear. So they are listening, but they're not comprehending what's actually being said. The parables are a judgment to the people whose eyes are dull and scarcely hear.

It's a judgment to the people. The Pharisees and scribes have purposely closed their eyes to the truth that could save them, and they defy our Lord, and it leads to their own destruction. When a person's heart is pliable, their eyes and ears are listening very closely to the word, and they understand what's being said.

Judgment, Accountability, and the Hardening of the Heart

Let's talk about judgment for a minute. What's the benefit of concealing truth to those who reject it? What's the benefit of that? The answer is that the more knowledge a person knows or has, the more accountable they are to that knowledge.

Jesus said in Luke 12 that the slave who knew his will, but didn't do it, would receive many lashes. But the one who did not know, only a few, because Luke 12 48 says this, from everyone who has been given much, much will be required.

And to whom they entrust much of him, they will ask all the more. I spent a day in a car with a Mormon one time. He was a very nice gentleman. And throughout the whole day, it was from 8 in the morning till 6 at night.

We spoke of nothing but the gospel of Christ. Back and forth all day. We had some sales calls, but primarily we were preaching, teaching, talking about the gospel, and he was trying to convince me, and I was trying to share with him from the scriptures of what the truth was.

And I remember telling him as he left that at the end of the day, I said this, that our conversation would haunt him all the days of his life because now he was accountable to the truth that he heard that day.

And I prayed that he would come and follow Christ. We are all accountable to the truth that we know. Many will hear but not understand. But to those who have a desire to see and to hear, look at what is said of them in the last two verses of our passage today.

Look at what it said. Verse 16. But blessed are your eyes because they see and your ears because they hear. For truly 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.

Wow, what a contrast, huh? To the crowds who have rejected Christ, the truth is hidden. But to the disciples, their eyes have been opened and they hear the truth clearly. They were blessed, weren't they?

Think about it your own life. Think about your own life. Think about before you were saved and that transition that has happened now. Are you blessed? Are you appreciative that God pulled you out of a life of despair and destruction?

Yes. I think we can all answer yes. They were blessed because they have seen Christ and all the miracles that He was doing. They were blessed because they heard and received the message of the kingdom of heaven.

And we're blessed. We have the Scriptures, we have this book before us that can lead us through every kind of issue that we face in life. You have fear? It's dealt with here. You have anxiety? It's here.

You're worried? It's here. We're blessed. But see the prophets and the righteous men of old could only dream about these things, didn't they? They didn't see these things. They only dreamt about seeing the coming Messiah.

They only dreamt about it. They were gazing into the future, weren't they? Anticipating the coming kingdom, but it says they were not able to see it. We see this in Hebrews 11, 13. All these died in faith without receiving the promises.

They didn't see it. The disciples, they were there. They were, you know, privileged to be able to be in the presence of God Almighty. Wow, how blessed is that? To walk with the King. The parables were written to two kinds of people.