Matthew 13 verse one. At the same day, Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea, and great crowds gathered around him so that he got into a boat and sat down and the whole crowd stood on the beach. He told them many things in parables saying, a sower went out to sow, and as he sowed, some seeds fell among the path, and the birds came and devoured them, other seeds on rocky grounds, and they didn't have much soil, and immediately sprang up since they had no depth of soil. When the sun rose, they were scorched, and since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them.

Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grains, some a hundredfold, some 60, some 30. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. The disciples came to him and said, why do you speak to them in parables? He answered them, to you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For the one who has, more will be given, the one who has an abundance, but for the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.

This is why I speak to them in parables because seeing, they do not see, hearing, they do not hear, nor do they understand. Indeed, in their case, the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that says, you will indeed hear but never understand, you will indeed see but never perceive. For this people, their heart has grown dull, and with their eyes they can barely hear, Their eyes have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their hearts and turn and I would heal them. But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. For truly I say to you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and they did not hear it.

This is the word of God, and I I do pray he would give you spiritual insight into it. That reading, verses one through 17, provokes a pretty basic question. Are the parables given to help us understand the truth or to obscure truth? Are the parables designed by God to shed light on his revelation or to obfuscate His revelation? Are they designed to help or to hinder, in other words?

Are the parables given to further your understanding of God and the gospel, or are they given to blind you to God and to the gospel? That's the nature of the parables as they raise this question. This is a difficult passage because in verses 10 through 13, both answers are given. Now Matthew 13 marks a massive change in Jesus' ministry. This is a seismic change in the whole teaching approach and the whole trajectory of Jesus' ministry.

There are those who divide Matthew's gospel up into three parts, and it's customary to divide the first part from chapters one to 12 and the second part starting in chapter 13. That's how abrupt the change is here. And it is an abruptness that is even more magnified by the fact that verse chapter 13 verse one starts with telling you it's on the same day as chapter 12. So something happens on this day that radically alters the trajectory and the content of Jesus' ministry. In Chapters one through 12, Jesus establishes the King and he demonstrates his kingly authority, beginning in Chapter five, with his clear teaching.

Chapter five through 12 is about the teaching of Jesus and the miracles of Jesus that back up his teaching, and his teaching is straightforward and it is didactic, it is confrontational, and it is clear. You don't always agree with it, but you have no mystery about what he's saying. That's the teaching in the first part of the book. He tells you this is what the word of God says, and this is what I say that it means. This is what your religious teachers say, and this is what I say that it means.

And then he validates his interpretation with his miracles. So the Pharisees, they could say we reject it, but they could not say they didn't understand it. The clarity with which He taught in these first the first part of Matthew's gospel is it's not up for debate. And then He switches in chapter 13 to speaking in parables. Parables are basically stories.

And Jesus is the master storyteller. The parables mark an abrupt shift. And you might think I'm exaggerating the kind of abrupt shift it is, but take your mind and your memory back to your college days. Let's say you have a college class, a history class or whatever, and you go to it for the first half of the semester, and every lecture starts the same. It's the textbook is open, and the professor is going through his syllabus, and he is delivering the content in a lecture format.

And then one day halfway through the semester you show up, and the professor starts the class with, there once was a farmer. Like, that is an abrupt shift in pedagogy. It's changing the way you're delivering the message intentionally, and it's gonna arrest your attention. That's what happens in chapter 13. Jesus sets aside the way he's been teaching for so long and goes to parables.

Now, what happened that drove him to this? That's what's hinted in chapter 13, verse one. The same day he went out. Now, this day, Jesus has been teaching in the wilderness, he was teaching in a house that is crowded, He's out there in the wilderness and then in this house because the Pharisees were after his life. The Pharisees had seen the signs and the wonders that he did and determined that he should be put to death.

Jesus withdrew from there and went into the wilderness. The crowds grew. He still taught all through chapter 12 using Old Testament illustrations, the Queen of Sheba, Sodom and Gomorrah, Tyre and Sidon. He used Old Testament illustrations to teach in a straightforward way and the people's hearts grew harder and harder and harder. Towards the end of chapter 12, he says, you're being delivered over to the devil.

You're committing the unpardonable sin, because they're looking at all of his teaching and all of his miracles, and the crowd is concluding, that could very well be the devil. They're willfully blind to spiritual truth, and so Jesus, in a sense, hands them over to their desires and says there's no hope for their salvation as long as they're confusing him with the devil. Then his family is trying to get him. Remember, at the end of chapter 12, we looked at this last last Lord's Day, his brothers and sisters and mother are calling for him. This is described in Mark and Luke as well.

They think he's out of his mind, they think his life is in danger, they don't think he's mentally right right now, and so they wanna bring him inside where it's safe, but they can't get even get to him because of all the crowd. Some of the crowd is his disciples, some of the crowd wants to kill him, and his family is on the edge of that. And so from that scene, Jesus gets onto a boat. He doesn't go home with his family. He gets onto a boat so that he can project his voice further and create some physical distance between himself and the crowd.

So this is an abrupt shift. And once he's on the boat, it's not Sermon on the Mount anymore. It's parables, stories. These stories all reveal hidden truth. All of his stories have the same substance to them.

They're stories designed to reveal the kingdom of God. But not the kingdom of God, not the millennial kingdom of God, not the kingdom of God that the Old Testament prophesies. There's so much prophecy in the Old Testament about the the kingdom of God when the Messiah comes to reign over the nations of the Earth from Jerusalem. There's a lot of prophecy about that. That's not what the parables are about.

The parables are about the kingdom of God between the death and the rejection of Jesus and his second coming. This is a time period that was hidden in the Old Testament, not revealed in the Old Testament, not prophesied in the Old Testament, and Jesus introduces it here with parables. Now, there are other people that told parables, there are rabbis that told parables, there are parables in the Old Testament, but Jesus perfected this form of delivery. And I can prove it to you. There's all kinds of rabbis that told parables in Jesus' lifetime.

Can you name one of them? Do you know any of their stories? And yet, in our own American culture, even people that, you know, couldn't find the gospel of Luke for $20 probably know the parable of the prodigal son or the Good Samaritan, it's so ingrained. Jesus' stories transcend time, culture, ethnicity, and they resonate with people's hearts, even people who don't understand them. That's the nature of parables.

And parables are not easy to understand. You need help to understand them. And so that's the question. Should parables, and this question will guide us the rest of the morning, should parables help or hinder your understanding of the Bible? Do they help you understand what God's communicating or do they hinder you?

Then the point of these verses this morning is quite simple. It starts with verses one and two, Jesus speaking in parables, many parables, verse three. He told lots of parables, verse three says. And then in both Matthew and Mark's gospel, they both choose the same parable to give you, the parable of the sower. He told many.

Both Matthew and Mark lets you know he told a lot of them, but here's one. And they both choose the same one and they choose the same one because this isn't in Matthew's gospel. In Mark's gospel, let's you know why they chose this one, because Jesus said if you don't understand this one, you can't get the rest. So this is your like parables 101 parable here. If you don't get this one, you don't get to go to 102.

He tells him it's a parable of the sower and the seed. We'll look at the interpretation of that parable next week. K? So not this week. We'll save the interpretation of the parable for next week because that's what Jesus does in both Matthew and Mark.

Jump back into it in verse 18. Jesus retells it and tells the interpretation, so that's next week. For this week, you just read it and you're left with the disciples. At the end of it, Jesus says, He who has ears to hear, let him hear. And the disciples are like, Guy, have an ear and I don't hear what you're saying.

And they ask Him, what is the meaning of that parable? In Matthew's gospel they ask, why are you speaking in parables? Plural. Again, lots of parables. All in Matthew 13 is filled with them.

This one gets put at the beginning because it's like the the archetype parable. It's the best of the parables, so to speak. You understand this one, the rest come much easier. And they did not understand it. And you, you sophisticated, educated American Christians, you, you think, how can you not understand the parable of the sower and the seed?

It's so obvious. The the seed is the word of God, and the soil is the human heart and some people don't believe and because they love the world and those who believe have spiritual growth, it's obvious. But that's because you've read it before. That's because you know the interpretation Jesus gives. Parables without interpretation are not obvious.

Goldilocks and the three bears. What's the moral? Be content with what you have or lock your house when you leave? Or here's a biblical one. Nathan confronts David about Uriah's murder and Bathsheba, and Nathan confronts David with a parable about the guy with all kinds of lambs, and the one guy with just one tiny little lamb, and he sleeps in his bed, and he names it, and he gets to play fetch with it and all that, and the mean villain climbs over the fence and kills the one lamb.

What should be done to him? It's a parable, and David's like, kill the guy, roar. And you're reading it and you're like, it's obviously about David. And Nathan says, it's about you, and David says, no. Like, you don't know that unless you have Nathan explain that.

And that's the way it is with the parables of Jesus. You have to learn how to interpret them. And so Jesus tells the parables and the disciples ask, why parables? Why parables? And Jesus answers.

And he gives his answer in two parts. In the first part of his answer, for those with faith, the parables are a window to the kingdom. For those with faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ, the parables are a window to help them see the kingdom of God. All the parables, as I mentioned, are about the kingdom of God from, we would say it this way, from Pentecost until the second coming. It says in verse 11, Jesus answers, to you it has been given, speaking of those with faith, the disciples, it's been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven.

That's why he's talking in parables. The parables are a gift, but the kingdom is the better gift, and they're getting the secret of the kingdom. The ESV says secret. The Greek word is mysterion. The ESV translates it secret, but mysterion, you don't even need to go to Greek class to know what mysterion means.

It means mystery. It even sounds the same. It is the mystery of the kingdoms. Mystery is somewhat of a technical theological word. It means something that was hidden in the Old Testament, revealed in the New.

The Kingdom of God itself is not a mystery in the Old Testament, but the Kingdom of God as seen through the church is, and here's what I mean by that. The Old Testament has lots of prophecies about the kingdom of God. There will be a Messiah who comes and establishes the kingdom. The messiah is sent from God. The messiah is the very son of God.

That's Psalm two. The Lord says to his anointed, that's the word for messiah, his king, I will make you my king. I will establish you on my holy hill in Jerusalem. He's gonna reign over the nations, kiss the sun, sun, or he's gonna crush you. That's Psalm two.

Psalm eight prophesies the sinlessness of the Messiah. Psalm 22 prophesies His crucifixion, His piercing of his hands and his feet and his vindication. Psalm 23 describes the Messiah as a shepherd. There's so many other ones. Psalm 110 describes the king as a priest.

How can he be a king and a priest? You can't in the Levitical law, but this is a priest not like Levi, but like Melchizedek. A king from Judah who is a priest from Melchizedek, that's this king, and he's gonna reign over the nations. He's gonna come to Israel through David, through Judah, from Abraham, and He's gonna reign over the nations from Israel. That's the Old Testament prophecy about the Messiah and about the savior.

And then Matthew's gospel comes and shows that Jesus is born the true king in Matthew one and two. He's from Adam. He's from Abraham. He's from Judah. He's from David.

He is the true king. The voice from heaven declares him to be king. Herod declares him to be the king. Remember, who is he that was born king of the Jews is Herod's question. Chapter four, he's the light to the Gentiles, the king to Israel.

Chapter five through seven, he teaches like the king. Chapters eight, nine, 10, even 11, he's doing miracles like the king. He's exercising kingly authority. And then chapter 12, the Israelites reject his kingship. That was not what they saw coming.

How can you have so much evidence that this is the king, including the voice from heaven, and then you analyze it and look at it. You see him raise the dead, heal the blind, all of that, and decide, I don't think he's the king for us. So they're going to reject him. By the end of Matthew, they're going to murder him. What now?

What happens to the kingdom now? Where did all the promises go about the king reigning over the world from Jerusalem? Where's that? Well, that's for the second coming. And in between the rejection of Christ as the king and him coming to reign over the nations is this period what we're in now, the church.

You do a word search for the word church in the Bible, you're not gonna find it until Matthew 16. The word church is not used in the Old Testament, and that should be surprising because the Bible is given to the church and here we are. But the word church is not in the Old Testament. It's there's no prophecies about the church. The closest you get might be Daniel's, you know, sixty ninth week.

It's just it's just the church is not described. Israel is described. The king is described. The king reigning through Israel is described, but not a church that goes in every nation, every language outside of Israel for Jews and Gentiles with the wall divide, you know, torn down, Levitical law fulfilled in the savior, baptism, communion, elders, deacons. That is not in the Old Testament.

There might be little markers that can be grown into fulfillment in the New Testament. Sure. But there's not prophecies about the church. There's not these descriptions about the church in the Old Testament. The first window you get into it is these parables where Jesus starts telling something that is a secret.

That's what it means by secret. Old Testament, this is secret. Or to use the language of verse 17, many prophets and righteous people long to understand this. That was the question in the Old Testament. How could the savior be Psalm 22 crucified and yet Psalm 23 be delivered?

They didn't under they didn't know. There's a tension there in the Old Testament for sure. Psalm 89. How could the Savior be established forever and ever and ever and yet rejected by God? I mean, there's there's obviously that tension there, but they didn't know.

That's the mystery. They longed to understand it. The answer to that is he will be rejected by people, our sins will be given to him, he'll be punished for our sins, buried, dead, buried, resurrected on the third day, ascended to heaven, offering new life to all those who would believe, and establishing his church. Sending his holy spirit to give people faith, to seal their hearts, to put them in the body of believers together, uniting our hearts in faith, giving us spiritual gifts, appointing elders, meeting on the Lord's Day, the ministry of the word. All of that is described in the New Testament.

That was the mystery in the Old Testament. So Jesus starts it by teaching in parables. And the first use of the word church in the Bible is Matthew 16, where Jesus asks Peter, who do people say that I am? And Peter gives him all the wrong answers. Then Jesus says, who do you say that I am?

And Peter says, you're the Messiah. You're the King. And Jesus says, flesh and blood did not reveal that to you, but the spirit of my father who's in heaven, he revealed that to you. And you're tempted to stop and say, wait a minute. How is that supernatural revelation?

How is that hard to get to? You have the voice from heaven at his baptism, you have him defeating the devil, you have all the miracles, you have him saying a hundred times he's the king, you have so much. How can you say that it requires supernatural revelation? Because people are blinds to the truth. And Peter declares: You are the Messiah, you're the Messiah.

Not the kind of Messiah they expected, He's not there to overthrow Rome and reign over the nations yet. And Peter's starting to get it. And Jesus says, you're right, on that confession I'm gonna build my church. That's the first use of the word church in the Bible. Matthew 18 is the second use where Jesus says he's gonna raise up elders to lead the church and to keep it pure, because it's gonna be a group people that will have it's supposed to only be believers but there will be non believers in it, and you can't pull the non believers out all the time without doing damage.

There's a parable about that and he says it in chapter 18. So you're gonna confront people for sin and live with each other with grace and forgive each other. That's what you get about the church. And then you get the book of Acts and you see the church established and then you get the rest of the Bible. Every other book of the Bible written to churches, including Revelation written to the seven churches.

So it becomes the anchor at the end of the Bible. It's obviously all about the church but in the Old Testament was a mystery. So Jesus starts with the parables to give a window into what the church will be like. That was such a mystery to them, and again you think this these parables are so obvious. The mustard seed, it's the smallest seed.

It's gonna grow and produce a tree, and the nations are gonna come and find respite in its shade. Like, it's not hard. The church is gonna grow around the world, and people are gonna get saved from every nation, and it's gonna be great. Like it's obvious to us because we know the church. But if you don't know what the church is you would hear that and be like I guess the mustard seed is pretty small.

So Jesus tells parables, and for those who have faith the parables become vivid pictures, vivid windows into what the church will be like. Faith is able to penetrate the veil of obscurity and help you see and appreciate the church. And that's because you cannot see the kingdom of God, you can't even see the kingdom of God unless you're regenerate, unless you have faith. That's what Jesus tells Nicodemus. Remember Nicodemus asked, how can I get into the kingdom of God?

And Jesus says, you can't even see it unless you're born again. What does that mean to be born again? And Jesus tells Nicodemus, the Holy Spirit has to open your eyes. You have to believe in Jesus. So if you believe in Jesus, you have, in a sense, the key that opens the parables.

It's not that the parables have a mystic quality to them. It's that they're so obviously about the church, and the Lord of the church is the crucified and resurrected Jesus Christ, that if you don't believe in the crucified and resurrected Jesus Christ, or you don't believe that the only way to the kingdom is through faith in him, you won't even have the right vocab to understand the parables. You won't have the right mental framework to perceive the parables if you don't have the exclusivity of Jesus Christ. But for those who have that, namely the disciples, oh man, what a blessing. They have the key to the kingdom.

Verse 12, the one who has more will be given. What a wonderful phrase that is. If you understand the parables, Jesus is gonna keep giving you more and more spiritual insight. You're gonna grow in your understanding and your fruitfulness, to use the language of the parables, you're gonna grow in your fruitfulness the rest of your life if you understand saving faith. You're gonna have a deeper understanding of the church and the kingdom of God and the lordship of Christ forever and ever throughout the rest of your life.

To the one who has, more will be given. What a wonderful picture of how the parables reveal to you the nature of the kingdom. But that's not everybody's experience. Second, to those without faith, the powerfuls are a blindfold for the purpose of judgment. Not everybody has faith.

The crowd there on the shore does not all have faith. One who has more will be given and have an abundance. But look at the second part of verse 12, from the one who has not even what he has will be taken away. For the person who does not have faith they will not be able to understand the parables, and what little understanding they have Jesus will take away from them. The haves and the have nots are getting separated by the parables.

The haves will only grow in their understanding. From this point forward, the rest of Jesus' ministry, those that have faith will grow and grow and grow. And from this point forward, for the rest of Jesus's ministry, those that have rejected him will have the little tiny shreds and crumbs on the ground. They'll have that taken away. And this happens in a very real and vivid way, doesn't it?

The religious leaders, the Pharisees that are after Jesus, that wanna kill him, what do they have? They have their synagogues, they have their sacrifices, they have their priestly order, they have the temple, they have that authority structure around the temple. That's what they have. That's the little that they have. They don't have that anymore.

Within four decades, they're gonna lose even that. Their temple will get torn down brick by brick. Their whole system in Jerusalem will be over. The remnant is gonna hide in a hill and be actually take their own lives. That's how this ends.

The little they have is gonna be gone by seventy AD. It's gonna be gone. They're gonna lose everything because they don't have faith. Verse 13, Jesus says, this is why I speak in parables. Here's the answer to the remember the question?

Why do you speak in parables? Here's verse 13 is the answer. Because seeing, they don't see. Hearing, they don't hear, nor do they understand. Jesus says, I'm speaking in parables so that they don't get it.

Doesn't that just sound wrong? One commentator who's who's a good commentator, like, not a crazy liberal guy, a very good commentator, writes, verse 13 is such a difficult and harsh verse. It makes us wonder if it hasn't been altered through the years. Because Jesus says, I'm speaking in parables so that they don't believe Me. He doesn't want them to understand.

His speech has a veil over it. It's the opposite of everything we would assume about both Jesus and parables. And it is its own little mystery. If Jesus doesn't want them to understand, isn't it easier just to not speak? You know, when you have little kids, parents, when you have little kids, you can talk about whatever you want to at the table because they're so little they don't understand.

But then they hit an age where you realize, oh, they're actually listening. At the other end of the trajectory, you get to the teenagers where they stop listening. So but in that little middle I'm just kidding. But that little middle period, you might try to have a conversation in front of your kids, and you realize they're listening. And so you might even try to spell a word, and then you're like, oh, they can spell.

They go to school. And so if you don't want your kids to understand, you just realize we can't talk about this in front of them. If Jesus doesn't want the Jews to understand, why doesn't He just stay quiet in front of them? That's the obvious question. The answer to that question He gives you in verse 14.

In their case the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled. And so indulge me just for a few minutes here. You don't need to flip back to Isaiah six because Matthew quotes it here, but you do need to understand the context of Isaiah six. A very well known chapter in Israel, it's a very well known chapter for us. I mean, American Christians are generally pretty familiar with Isaiah six, but the Jews, this is like the John three sixteen of the Old Testament, it's such a well known crystal clear passage to them.

Judah, which is the two the two tribes, tribe of Judah and Benjamin, the other 10 tribes, they'd already gone into exile. And Judah was bad. The people that the king in Jerusalem, they were bad. Their kings are bad. There were idols in the temple.

The people were flirting with paganism. They're trying to bribe the Egyptians to help them. I mean, they were falling apart, and so God says you're gonna go into exile. In fact, the other 10 tribes get taken into exile by the Assyrians. And so, the the two tribes, the ones that have Jerusalem, that have the king, they're afraid of their own exile, but they're sinners and they deserve it.

And God tells them you deserve it and you're gonna go pack your bags. And then God shows them mercy, and their mercy comes in two ways. He gives them the prophet Isaiah, and he gives them King Uzziah, a godly prophet and a godly king. And Uzziah repents and calls the people to repent. Uzziah is one of only handful of kings that the Bible says did what was right in the eyes of the Lord.

And imagine the hope that the remnant has alive during Uzziah's lifetime. They have such hope. They're like, he's he's godly. We were expecting exile, and instead we get Uzziah. Maybe we don't have to pack our bags.

Maybe God's gonna show us mercy and kindness. Maybe this will be the kingdom. And then, king Uzziah dies. And Isaiah feels like he gets punched in the gut. He was so optimistic.

He thought this was gonna be the deliverance, and now he's dead. It turns out he wasn't the Messiah. And at that moment, Isaiah goes called into the temple of the Lord. He has a vision, and he sees the Lord's temple, and the temple is filled with Yahweh's glory, and the robe of Yahweh's glory fills the temple with glory. And the angels are singing holy holy holy.

And Isaiah says, I can't even speak. And an angel sears his mouth. And Isaiah says, my people are so sinful. Of course it's on his mind. And the angel sanctifies his mouth so that he can be a messenger to his people, but then what message is he supposed to bring them?

But then what message is he supposed to bring them? God tells him you're gonna be a prophet, but from now on they're not gonna listen. You're gonna be a prophet who speaks, but your words are gonna be such they will not understand. They're going to be blind. The words given in verse 14 are what God tells Isaiah.

You're gonna speak, but in verse 14 in a way that they will never understand. They'll see you like Isaiah is not gonna be a ghost. They'll see him, they can touch him, they can have a meal with him, but they will never listen to him. They will never perceive what he's saying. Verse 15, which is from Isaiah six verse 10, as people's hearts have grown dull, their ears can barely hear, they're so spiritually deaf.

Their eyes they have closed. In the Hebrew for closed there, it's Greek of course in the New Testament, but in Hebrew, the Old Testament, it's not the normal word for blind. It's the word for smearing mud on your eyes to blindfold yourself. That's the word. God says, Isaiah, you're gonna go prophesy to them, but you're gonna prophesy in such a way they will never see you because they have covered their eyes with their own sin.

So why would God send Isaiah? Imagine Isaiah at this moment of his life just heartbroken, being told, you're gonna spend the rest of your life appreciating people and I don't want them to believe. It's the substitute teacher who shows up to class. The principal says, hey, this class does not listen to teachers. You know, like, alright.

That's you know, for a substitute teacher, that's just like Tuesday. And the principal says, they're not gonna listen because I told them not to. That's Isaiah. Go preach these people, but they're not gonna listen to you, man. I I've made it so they won't.

They're so sinful, I don't want them to hear you anymore. So, why would God send Isaiah then? Well, he's sending them so they have no excuse. They will never be able to say, God didn't warn us, God didn't send us a messenger. No, he sent them Uzziah, he sent them Isaiah, And all of Isaiah's words are just gonna pile up at their feet and they will never listen.

And when they die, they will be judged for all the words Isaiah said that they didn't even understand. God gives them more and more heat, but no light. It's a self induced guilt, of course. It's like Pharaoh's heart. Pharaoh hardened his heart, hardened his heart, hardened his heart, and then finally God hardens his heart.

There. The Israelites rejected prophet after prophet. They killed every prophet from Abel to Zechariah. They're gonna murder Isaiah, by the way. That's how his life ends.

God delivers them over to it. And so here on the shore of the Sea Of Galilee, having seen all of the miracles Jesus has done, having heard the Sermon on the Mount, having seen him raise the dead and give sight to the blind, and all of that, and they say, could be the devil, Jesus says no more. No more teaching that is straightforward to you. You're delivered over to your sin. He's gonna thread the needle though.

He's gonna speak to them in such a way that the disciples will still learn. Disciples will learn about the kingdom, so that when the church age comes Jesus taught about it. The disciples are gonna learn about it, and Jesus is gonna speak about it in a way in front of the disciples that those who don't have faith will never understand it. In a sense, it's a mercy. By keeping the Jews from understanding what he's saying, he's he's withholding judgment because you're judged for the amount of information you had.

So in a sense, it's a mercy. But in another sense it's a hardening of their heart. And that's just the great paradox. It's described in Romans nine and eleven as well. It's a great paradox.

The same sun that melts the wax, hardens the clay. It's the mercy and the severity of God. He mercifully gives them more revelation they can't understand to decrease their judgment. It's severity that when they die there's just mounds of evidence at their feet that their hearts were hard. Isaiah was told to preach to people that won't understand, and that is the passage Jesus quotes in Matthew 13 for why he speaks in parables of all things.

That's what he goes through. And notice verse 14 even calls it a prophecy. Like so much of Isaiah, I don't even know if Isaiah knew it was a prophecy. I don't think Isaiah took this as a prophecy in Isaiah six. It was more like this is what your life's gonna be like, man.

Jesus takes it and makes it a prophecy and again, so much of Isaiah's ministry is like that. The virgin will have a child and before he grows up, the king will be there. I mean, Isaiah thinks it's about his king. No, it's about Jesus. So it is with this, to preach to a people that will never understand, their hearts will only be hardened.

The doctrine of election is behind this, that God chooses whom to save, and he delivers people over to their sin. God's election is active, he chooses to save people. His condemnation is not based on a lack of grace, his condemnation is based on people's works. The Israelites are not these Israelites are not gonna be judged and sent to hell because they weren't elect. They're gonna be judged and sent to hell because they rejected Jesus and murdered him.

But God is sovereign over even that. Pharaoh hardened his heart. Think of all of the blessings that Israel had over Pharaoh. This is Romans nine. These Jewish leaders here, to theirs was the covenants.

They had the covenants. They had the prophecies. They had the patriarchs. Abraham is their father. They had all of the promises.

They had the word of God, but they didn't have Christ. Jacob I loved, Esau I hated. This is the word of God. And people say that's not fair. Who are you to choose to speak back to your maker and say, why did you make me like this?

Can't the maker make some vessels designed for mercy and other vessels designed for destruction? Can't he do that? So here's Jesus on the shore telling the disciples, I'm gonna speak to them so they will never understand. Their sin is smeared over their eyes. They won't be able to blame God for their judgment and say why didn't you choose me?

Of course not. It's their sin that is culpable. The kingdom is right in front of them but it is hidden, and but it is hidden in plain sight. I mean that's the nature of the parables. It's something that's hidden in such an obvious way, it's right in front of them, but it's hidden in plain sight.

That's the great mystery of these parables. Mystery is less about what are they about, what does the seed signify, what does the tree signify, the mystery is less about that, the mystery is more about why wouldn't they believe. They wouldn't believe because Jesus told the truth about himself. In fact, in John eight forty five, which is around the same time as Matthew 13, Jesus says, the reason you hate me is because I speak the truth about myself. Jesus says, if I told you lies about me, you'd believe me so fast.

I keep telling you the truth and so you hate me. When I was a pretty new Christian, first year or two of my Christian life, I was at the University of New Mexico, which is the Harvard of the Southwest, by the way. In our bookstore there, I saw a book called The Idiot's Guide to the Teaching of Jesus. It drew my attention. I remember flipping it over, flipping it up, and leafing through it, and I found a section on the parables of Jesus.

Obviously, not a Christian book. And the parables of Jesus, it rightly said, all the parables of Jesus are about the kingdom. And then it had a little chart of all the parables, and then next to it, a little one sentence description of how that parable is about the kingdom. And this has been etched in my memory ever since. Many of the parables, maybe not half, but many of the parables under how it reflects the kingdom, it just had a question mark next to it.

It's like, they're all about the kingdom, we know that, but, like, half of them, it's anybody's guess. You know, and one of them that I have the question right next to was about the mustard seed that grows into the tree. They're like, how's that about the kingdom? Nobody knows. Nobody knows.

It's so obvious, but that's the nature of the parables. For you, if your heart is soft towards Jesus, I pray this next month in the parables or so will be an encouragement to you. If your heart is hard towards Jesus, I pray that you would look at the the crowds that are turned over to their own destruction and you let that be a warning to you. Do not harden your hearts towards the Lord. If you harden your heart towards the Lord, it doesn't get easier to believe, it only gets harder until eventually you're turned over to your own destruction.

Lord, we're grateful for the kindness and mercy of you, our savior. Behold the kindness of God, Paul tells the Romans. We're also in awe here of your severity, that you allow people to be turned over to their own desires. Severity are on display for us, Lord. I pray for the hearts of those who are here today that our hearts will be soft towards you and your word.

Help us believe and grow in our love for Christ. We ask this in Jesus' name Amen.