Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Get our Bible and return to Matthew, chapter 13, Matthew, chapter 13.
[00:00:08] We're going to read starting in verse number 10 and then verses 34 and 35 as well.
[00:00:15] Tonight.
[00:00:21] Going to have a little bit of a Bible college course maybe tonight. Hopefully, for those of you that like to take notes, this will be a good opportunity to take some notes on some little. Not real technical, but a little bit more technical than maybe we normally have.
[00:00:37] Matthew, chapter 13, verse number 10. The Bible says this, and the disciples came and said unto him, why speakest thou unto them in parables? He answered and said unto them, because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. But to them it is not given.
[00:00:52] For whosoever hath to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance but whosoever hath not from him shall be taken away even that he hath.
[00:01:02] Therefore speak I to them in parables, because they seeing, see not, and hearing, they hear not, neither do they understand. And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, by hearing, ye shall hear, and shall not understand and seeing, ye shall see and shall not perceive. For the heart of this people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest at any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear.
[00:01:43] For verily I say unto you that many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see and have not seen them, and to hear those things which ye hear and have not heard them.
[00:01:57] Look at verse 34 and 35, if you would. All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude in parables, and without a parable spake he not unto them, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet saying, I will open my mouth in parables I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world. Let's pray together, our Lord, as we come at your word, one more time to study it. Lord, we know the depth of Scripture is far greater than we understand, and there's a lot more here than we can cover or even know about. And so, Lord, we just we acknowledge that before you and we ask you to take maybe a little bit of your word and the truths that are written in Matthew 13 with the parables and what you spoke from that little boat on the Sea of Galilee, and that you would teach us here tonight and you would help us to learn more about you, Lord, Especially that we might draw close to you like your disciples did. Lord, we just want to know more about you, your purposes, your ways, your will.
[00:03:03] Lord, we just want to grow. Help us to grow tonight. Give me wisdom as I try to help your people. And I pray that you would be the teacher in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:03:13] So in the parables, there's a fair amount of.
[00:03:19] For those of you that have studied these things, especially I know Brother Ben has been. Has had a lot of opportunity, it seems, with the cults, to speak to people that are involved in cults. Even yesterday in our evangelism, to two different groups of our crew got involved with a cult that was a little bit new, or it's not as common in the United States. But when you deal with cults, sometimes the question of parables comes up. And parables are an important part of scripture, a very important part of scripture. And the Lord teaches us a lot of important truths by means of parables. And he did it on purpose. He did it on purpose.
[00:04:00] Now, we might have this idea that somehow the Lord has given us the Bible, a revelation that everyone might know the truth, or the Lord taught people so that everyone would know the truth. Well, take a peek at verse number 11.
[00:04:17] I hate to throw a wrench into your theology, but this says, because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is is not given.
[00:04:30] So God has given us his word, but it is not his intention that everyone equally share in the revelation of that truth. Although it's available to everyone. It is absolutely available to everyone.
[00:04:44] But that's just not the way he operates. That's just not the way he operates. In this case, the multitude, the Lord had not intended to give them the truth.
[00:04:54] He intended to shroud it in mystery.
[00:04:57] And one way he did it is with parables. Now, we know, according to verses 34 and 5, that speaking in parables, these dark sayings, verse 35 says, that is prophetic. And that's out of The Psalm. Psalm 78, I think, verse two.
[00:05:14] And so what a parable is, it's called a dark saying, because what it does is it wraps the truth in kind of a covering.
[00:05:24] That covering, when you understand it, reveals a great deal of truth. But without the key to that parable and its interpretation, it veils the truth. So it does both at the same time. It reveals and veils the truth. That's why it's called a dark saying.
[00:05:44] And so what is a parable?
[00:05:47] The definition of a parable is this. And we got to get this right, because sometimes this is misunderstood. And we got to get it right because it can lead to other kind of issues later. And you'll see what I mean in just a minute. A parable is a usually generally realistic story or narrative told to convey a moral or spiritual lesson or insight.
[00:06:13] The key in this phrase is it is usually realistic. All right, that's going to be very important in a minute. Now, what's interesting is the word parable is a transliteration of a Greek word. In other words, it's not really an English word. It's a Greek word that we've put into English, right? And it simply means this. It's a compound word, and it means to cast beside. That's all it means. Now, what does that mean, to cast beside? So say I wanted to say I wanted to explain something, but I wanted to use an object lesson to explain it. What I might do is take that object, for instance, a sword. Just something pops up in my mind. You take a sword or a knife or something like that, you take it out and you cast it down, right? You throw it down beside the truth that it represents. You're using it as an illustrate. Preacher talk is it's an illustration, right? You lay it beside the truth you're trying to show and teach and to use it as a comparison, as an analogy. That's all the word means. That's all the word means. Now, in theological circles, we've develop these highly technical definitions of parables, and parables are this and parables are that. But really, it's not that complicated. It's just an analogy. It's an illustration. That's all it is.
[00:07:39] That's what the word means. English word. That's what the word means in Greek, which is where we get the English word.
[00:07:46] It means to cast beside, to compare these two things. And that's how the Lord Jesus is using it here in Matthew, chapter 13, verse 3, which is in our text from this morning, this word. And he spake many things unto them in parables, saying, behold, a sower went forth to sow. This is the very first occurrence of the word parable in the New Testament. This is the very first one, the introduction to it. Okay, so I'm going to give you some principles, general principles. We're going to go pretty fast through these because I want to get to the main point here. General principles for understanding parables, because they are dark sayings, right? There's mystery involved with interpreting them all Right. Number one. For those of you taking notes, number one, parables often have a cultural context which must be understood.
[00:08:35] Now, as I so eloquently demonstrated, using a BlackBerry bush as a parable did not work out too well for the purpose for which I used it. Right? Why? Because seeing it was the first time I had ever planted a BlackBerry bush and dealt with that, hadn't even gotten through a year yet. So I misused it, right, by accident, because I didn't know. And oftentimes parables are like that. For instance, there's a parable of the fig tree. There's the parable of different parables regarding fishing. And you have to understand what they're doing in order to understand the parable. You have to understand what. What it means to sow. If you have this idea that people are sowing, like you would see in, you know, somewhere, maybe in Iowa. Iowa, where they're sowing corn seeds, if you think that that's what they're doing, you're going to be so far off from what's being described here. So there is a cultural aspect to it which you have to understand because it is an analogy that is based upon a known physical thing to illustrate a spiritual truth. So if you don't understand the thing, you're definitely not going to understand the spiritual truth.
[00:09:45] And so this is one reason why sometimes we misinterpret parables. I'll give you a prime example which we won't cover right now, but look at verse number 31 in this chapter.
[00:10:00] Verse 31 and 32 is the parable of the mustard seed. Just Skip to verse 32. It says, of the mustard seed, which indeed is the least of all seeds, but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and. And becometh the tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.
[00:10:18] Now, what's the problem? Does anybody note Andrew the green thumb in our congregation? Those of you, probably others of you, have had a garden and things, maybe not so much with mustard, but what's the problem with this? What's that?
[00:10:45] So you have to understand what a mustard plant is in order to understand the parable. And if you just assume and just read through it, you'll misunderstand it, and we'll cover this one, this parable later. All right? Number two. Just to hurry through them. Number two. Parables are often directly interpreted by the Lord in the context.
[00:11:08] So I know sometimes we have this idea that we have to figure it all out. But in this set of seven parables in chapter 13, two of them, the Lord directly tells us what they mean. Now, that doesn't answer every question, because even in his interpretation, sometimes there's things we still have questions about. But in our desire to understand the parables, the first thing we have to do is to see what the Lord says they mean instead of imposing upon it whatever we think. Right? And so that's an important principle, and that's one that's often overlooked. Okay? And once you understand and you have seen Jesus explanation of the meaning, then you can take those truths, for instance, the seed is the word, that's one from this morning. You can then take that to other parables that Jesus spoke and, and understand those whenever those elements are found in those parables. And so in this way, you can build your understanding of the parables in other parts of the Bible. All right, number three, Parables are true to life stories.
[00:12:17] Parables are true to life stories. What? Parables are not.
[00:12:21] Parables are not fairy tales. Parables are not myths. This is a very important point. Parables are true to life stories. That's the only way they're effective.
[00:12:32] If I like a minute ago I mentioned using a sword as an illustration or an object lesson, a parable, but if you didn't know what a sword was, it would be useless.
[00:12:43] So this is why they have to be true to life with something that is commonly understood. Okay?
[00:12:48] Now, a parable does not have to be true to be true to life.
[00:12:56] Note that a parable does not have to be true to be true to life. Let me ask you a question from this morning. The parable of the sower, was there an actual sower that Jesus is referring to?
[00:13:09] What do you think some of you are like? Some of you are like, I don't know. Some of you are like, I'm not going to answer.
[00:13:19] We don't know.
[00:13:21] It doesn't matter.
[00:13:23] Parable doesn't have to be an actual event, historical event in order for it to be used as an object lesson. It just, it does, however, need to be true to life.
[00:13:32] Right?
[00:13:34] The effectiveness of the parable depends on our understanding of that common human situation or thing. All right, number four.
[00:13:42] Some parables are grouped.
[00:13:45] Some parables are grouped together so that if you understand one and you see them grouped together, you can use your understanding of one to understand the others. The primary example of this is Luke 15. In Luke 15, you have the parable of the lost sheep, you have the parable of the lost coin. Both of those are very, very similar. But there's one other that is different than the other two. Anybody know what that is?
[00:14:11] It's not called the parable of the lost anything. It's called something else. But it is actually the throne. Third in a group of three.
[00:14:18] It's the prodigal son. The prodigal son. Was that a real son and a real father? I have no idea.
[00:14:25] But it's the third in a group of three. Lost sheep, lost coin, lost son. And what's, you know, I don't know where we get these ideas, but there's.
[00:14:37] We think prodigal means lost. It doesn't. Prodigal means wasteful. That's what the word means. So.
[00:14:45] But actually, biblically speaking, the term for that parable is the parable of the lost son.
[00:14:51] And they all three teach the same lesson. So some parables are grouped. All right, Number five.
[00:14:59] Parables have a lesson to be learned.
[00:15:03] Parables have a lesson to be learned. In other words, the lesson is not the parable itself, but the thing that it illustrates.
[00:15:14] All right, the parable is not the lesson itself. The parable illustrates the other thing which is the point of the parable. Okay, that's number five. Number six. And last, we should base doctrine on clear teaching of Scripture and not on parables. This is a very big problem among Bible preachers and teachers.
[00:15:40] We have to base doctrine on the clear statements of Scripture, not on illustrations of those truths.
[00:15:46] Right. The illustrations are to help broaden and help us understand our. And deepen our knowledge of them. But truths are introduced not in parables, but in plain teaching.
[00:16:01] Now, in this case, these truths are introduced in plain teaching when Jesus interprets the parable, not when he gives the parable initially. All right, so those are six principles that will help you when you. When you're reading your Bible and help you to understand parables. Okay, so what is the purpose of parables? Why did Jesus speak in parables? Look at verse number 10.
[00:16:27] The disciples asked our Lord this question. He asked him, they asked in verse number 10, why speakest thou unto them in parables?
[00:16:35] Now, I want you to follow, as we read through here. I want you to follow these words. I'm going to read it one more time, and I want you to follow the language, especially the pronouns, not the pronouns. You're thinking of she, they, Jesu, whatever. I'm talking about English, real English pronouns. All right?
[00:16:52] In verse 10, why speakest thou unto them in parables? Who's speaking in verse 10?
[00:16:59] The disciples. Who is the them to which the disciples refer?
[00:17:06] The multitude. So in starting in the first verse in the passage, you see a distinction starting to grow. Between the disciples and the multitude. And this distinction is persistent. Look at verse 11. He answered and said unto them. Who? Who's that follow me now? The disciples. Because it is given unto you. Who's that?
[00:17:27] Disciples to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. But to them multitude it is not given. For whosoever hath to him shall be given.
[00:17:37] And he shall have more abundance. But whosoever hath not from him shall be taken away even that he hath. Therefore I speak unto them multitude in parables. Because they multitude seeing, see not and hearing. They hear not, neither do they understand.
[00:17:54] In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias. Which saith, by hearing, you shall hear and shall not understand.
[00:18:01] And seeing, ye shall see and shall not perceive.
[00:18:04] Look at verse number 16.
[00:18:07] The Lord pivots now, and he says, but blessed are your eyes. Whose eyes?
[00:18:13] The disciples, for they see, and your ears the disciples, for they hear.
[00:18:23] So verse 13, 14, 15.
[00:18:27] Do not apply to the disciples this seeing, but see not, hearing, but hear not. Heart gross, ears dull, eyes that are blind. That does not apply to the disciples, but it only applies to the multitude.
[00:18:41] So there is this obvious distinction between the multitude and the disciples. You see it in verse 11. You see it down in verse number 16.
[00:18:54] We see it in multiple places. And the Lord makes that distinction clear. He chooses his words carefully.
[00:19:04] And this is a very important truth.
[00:19:08] Our Lord makes a distinction between his disciples. And at this point, I'm not talking about the 12. I'm talking about you, his disciples, because you are his disciples.
[00:19:17] He makes a distinction between you all, between us and the broader humanity.
[00:19:26] Concerning the amount of truth that we will be provided. He doesn't deal with them like he deals with us in the same way. Way.
[00:19:36] Now, if you look at verse number 18.
[00:19:38] Look at verse number 18, if you would. Jesus says, hear ye, therefore. Who's he talking to?
[00:19:45] He's talking to the disciples. Hear ye, therefore, the parable of the sower. And he proceeds to explain the parable.
[00:19:52] This is not the only. Only time he does it. Look at verse 36, if you will.
[00:19:58] Then Jesus sent the multitude away and went into the house and. And his disciples came unto him saying. Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field. He answered and said unto them, he that soweth the good seed is the Son of man.
[00:20:12] So in private among the disciples. He had a different conversation. Than he had publicly with the multitude. That is very important.
[00:20:24] The primary difference between these Two groups, the multitude and the disciples, is that the Lord explained the parables to the disciples, but he did not explain the parables to the multitude.
[00:20:41] Why not?
[00:20:45] It doesn't seem like the Lord is too interested in committing the grand truths of his kingdom to people whose hearts are not prepared to receive and not inclined to receive those truths. He's just not giving it to them.
[00:21:06] Now he's giving them the truth because he said seeing, they see not. So they are seeing it. In other words, when they hear the parable, they are hearing the truth.
[00:21:16] Is that not accurate? Of course. When they hear the parable, they are hearing the truth.
[00:21:21] So they're seeing it, but they're not seeing it. The disciples are seeing it and then they're seeing it. Because there's a difference between seeing and seeing. There's a difference between hearing and hearing. How many of you have been in church before you were converted and you heard the truth and then one day the Lord knocked on your door and you heard the truth?
[00:21:41] There's a difference between hearing it and hearing it. There's a difference. This is all we're talking about here.
[00:21:49] The Lord is not committing these truths of Scripture, these truths of his kingdom, the kingdom of heaven, to those whose hearts are not inclined to receive it because these truths are too precious. And it is for this reason that Christ spoke in parables. By speaking in parables, he hid these truths from those whose hearts were, as described here, gross dull.
[00:22:16] So to answer the broader question, why Lord, did you speak to the multitude in parables? Two reasons. They're actually two in one. If you're writing this down, you can write this down.
[00:22:30] The primary purpose of the parables was to hide the truth from the multitude and simultaneously reveal the truth to Christ's disciples.
[00:22:47] It was to hide the truth from the multitude while simultaneously revealing the truth to his disciples. Look at verse 12.
[00:22:58] The Bible says Jesus speaking. Now why he did this?
[00:23:02] Why would Jesus.
[00:23:04] This is contrary to the lovey dovey Jesus that that is described in society, right? Where he's going to tell you everything that you want to know. And hold on.
[00:23:17] Look at verse 12.
[00:23:19] This is the principle upon which Jesus is operating.
[00:23:24] For whosoever hath to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance.
[00:23:32] But whosoever hath not from him shall be taken away, even that he hath. How many of you have read this, like myself, have thought to yourself, that doesn't seem fair.
[00:23:44] Have any of you ever thought that that doesn't seem fair. So here's the way we're going to do it because we have been indoctrinated with socialism.
[00:23:52] Here's the way it works, dear brother Morrell here. What's your first name? I'm sorry?
[00:23:57] Caleb. So, dear brother Caleb, he's short on money.
[00:24:02] And it is the job of our government to take some money from Ari, who's rich.
[00:24:09] You didn't know that, did you? That's why he has all those Milwaukee tools.
[00:24:14] To take some money from brother Ari and to give it to him. Because he hath not.
[00:24:20] Brother Ari hath give from him that hath and give it to him that hath not.
[00:24:26] Yeah, he wants some Milwaukee tools.
[00:24:30] But this is the opposite of what Jesus said. Jesus said that to him that hath shall it be given, and he shall have more.
[00:24:42] And from him and to him that hath not, what he has will be taken away from him.
[00:24:50] Ouch.
[00:24:52] That doesn't seem fair, does it?
[00:24:55] Now, I'm already longer than I wanted to go. We're at about 30 minutes, right? Actually, we're at about.
[00:25:02] We're at 25 minutes right now. Okay, here's. Let me give you the references so that those of you taking notes can write it down and run the references and verify what I'm saying.
[00:25:15] Write down Matthew 25, 25, verse 29, and Luke 8, verse 18.
[00:25:23] Because you'll find this same statement in verse 12 in those two passages, but you'll find it explained a little bit more detail. Here's what the Lord is saying.
[00:25:33] The Lord has given you things. He's given you truth.
[00:25:40] If you. And this goes for someone who's not a believer as it regards spiritual truth, that would lead to their salvation. But it also regards a believer because all of us are on some stage of this, right?
[00:25:53] The Lord's giving you some truth. That's what the parables are. They're truth. They're little nuggets of truth. The Lord's giving you truth. What are you doing with it?
[00:26:03] Because he takes it seriously.
[00:26:06] If you receive truth from the Lord God Almighty, and you do not use that, and you do not obey that, and you do not act upon that, he's going to take it away from you.
[00:26:23] Ouch.
[00:26:27] But on the other hand, if he gives you truth, and he always is the initiator, right? The Lord is always the initiator. He owes no man any debt.
[00:26:37] If any truth is given. He started it.
[00:26:41] He gives truth to us. And if you take that truth and you receive it and you act upon it, he'll give you more.
[00:26:50] You take that, he'll give you more. He'll take that. He'll give you more. You know what's being described here? It's just another way to describe growth.
[00:27:00] And you know what? By the end of this thing, you'll find yourself as a person who has received and received from the Lord and has grown from a great deal of truth. But the moment that he gives you truth and you say, I'm good is the moment that. That spigots turned off, right?
[00:27:22] So we can learn some principles from this, this verse.
[00:27:31] We can learn some principles from this verse.
[00:27:38] The first one is this, that the Lord reveals some truth to everyone, right? He starts this process. So whatever truth that is sometimes, that's creation. Just the truth that is revealed in creation by God's what we call general revelation. That is truth that God has revealed to people. And he holds men and women accountable to, to the stars and the sun and the moon and the planets that he has set in order in the heavens as to whether they will take that truth and understand that truth, or whether they will allow some false religion to darken their mind and corrupt the truth that they've been given.
[00:28:19] And if they allow that to happen, then their mind becomes dark and that truth is removed.
[00:28:27] The Lord reveals some truth to everybody, but it also shows us that the Lord will hold people accountable for what truth he has given them, whether they misuse it or ignore it.
[00:28:42] And when that happens, he will remove it from them.
[00:28:49] Now, these parables going back to our parables, now carriers of truth, are they not?
[00:28:55] They're little packages of truth. There is so much truth. How many of you have been blessed by reading the parables before? There's so much truth in the parables, before you even get to the interpretation, you can just learn so much from the parables and all the things that go along with them.
[00:29:11] The multitude indeed came in contact with the truth in the parables.
[00:29:20] So I want to pose one question as we get to the end is this.
[00:29:24] What is the primary difference between the multitude and the disciples as it regards the parables and understanding them?
[00:29:37] What is the difference? Here's what I want you to get. This is the whole key. You think, well, that's not very nice that the Lord would not reveal the truth to people.
[00:29:47] What is the difference between the multitude and the disciples?
[00:29:52] When you read this, Jesus tells the multitude the parable.
[00:29:56] And then later the disciples in the house, in private come to him and say, lord, tell us these, tell us what these things mean.
[00:30:04] You know what he does?
[00:30:06] He pours it on Thick.
[00:30:08] So what he does, what's the difference?
[00:30:12] The difference is Jesus.
[00:30:19] What do you mean? The difference is Jesus.
[00:30:22] You see the multitude, they listen to the parables at a distance.
[00:30:29] The disciples went up close to Jesus and said, lord, tell us what these things mean.
[00:30:35] That distance was the difference.
[00:30:38] All the multitude had to do to get the understanding of the parables is to go to Jesus.
[00:30:45] That's it.
[00:30:46] He is the source of truth.
[00:30:50] All they had to do was go to him and say, tell us what these things mean. And there was a group of people that did that. That's why there's a distinction made between the multitude and the disciples. There was a group of people that went to Jesus who believed in Christ, who received him, who trusted him.
[00:31:07] And they went to him and said, Lord, what did these mean? And he says, here it is, and laid it out.
[00:31:14] No dark sayings anymore, plain teaching, right?
[00:31:23] Here's the thing.
[00:31:25] The Lord's not giving us trust, truth. He's not giving anybody truth apart from the Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:31:34] He wants you to go to him.
[00:31:38] He's not giving us truth separate from Christ himself.
[00:31:44] This is why so many people that are very religious people with doctrines, doctrines in religion, so many people, especially a lot of the Jewish people, other people who are involved in religion.
[00:31:59] You have a very young Christian who doesn't know a lot of the Bible. You have a young Christian who doesn't really know a lot. And yet these truths, these grand truths of scripture, things like justification by faith, the vicarious atonement of Christ, right? These are grand truths of scripture, right?
[00:32:24] What Jesus is talking about, the kingdom of God, these are grand truths of scripture, foundational aspects of the word of God and God's, if you will, spiritual universe. These are grand truths. And you have some little babe in Christ who, because he goes to Jesus, because he believes in Christ, because he is near to Christ, he's in the room sitting beside the Lord Jesus and the Lord is saying, alright, and this and see, he explains that. And he says, see, I'll show you this, this verse means that. And he teaches them. And all these doctors of the law and all these doctors of religion, all these theologians scratch their head and have their little debates and they put them on the Internet and they have such a hard time with these. And they quibble about these things and these truths are not revealed to them, they're dark.
[00:33:16] And some little baby in Christ and some local church in some no name place gets it and they don't.
[00:33:23] You know why the difference is Jesus, one goes to Jesus and one will not.
[00:33:31] Just like that multitude.
[00:33:35] It's available.
[00:33:37] He's not revealing. I'm just telling you. This whole thing. How many times we always circle back to this, did we not, Brother Ben, with the cults, you know, yesterday, it always go back to Jesus. That's. Everything's about him.
[00:33:50] All of God's created universe revolves around one person. And that person is the Lord Jesus Christ. You and I are not getting truth unless we get it from Jesus.
[00:34:07] That's the truth. Jesus is the difference.
[00:34:12] So therefore, if you want to know the truth, you've got to go to Jesus. You see, that's what they're doing here. The disciples are next to Jesus. They get it. They get the truth. He pours it on thick.
[00:34:24] And the multitude, it was available to them, but only if they came to Jesus.
[00:34:29] He is the source of truth. So the truth is not something separate from and independent of Jesus Christ. He holds it is as easy as coming to the Savior. That's it.
[00:34:42] He's the source. First Corinthians 1, 23 and 4. But we preach Christ crucified unto the Jews, a stumbling block.
[00:34:51] They don't get it.
[00:34:53] And unto the Greeks, foolishness, they don't get it.
[00:34:56] But unto them which are called, that's that group, right? The multitude and the disciples, both Jews and Greeks. Christ, the power of God, notice. And the wisdom of God.
[00:35:10] Colossians 2, 3 says this. In whom in Christ are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. So why did the disciples get the understand the parables and the multitude? Not why did the multitude? Was it veiled from them one reason? And that reason was their nearness to Jesus.
[00:35:28] He's the answer.
[00:35:31] Can I get an amen in that?
[00:35:34] Jesus is always the answer. You've got a problem, you've got an issue, you've got a question. You need wisdom. There is only one place to go ever and always, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the answer.
[00:35:50] He is the answer.
[00:35:53] Now let me cover one more thing very quickly and we'll be done. Luke chapter 16, if you would.
[00:36:01] Luke 16.
[00:36:08] If you've had any discussions with a Jehovah's Witness or any other cult that denies the existence of a literal hell, you've probably discussed Luke chapter 16, verses 19 to 31, which is the story of the rich man and Lazarus. Is Luke 16, 1931 a parable or not?
[00:36:31] It doesn't matter.
[00:36:33] That's what I want to show you.
[00:36:35] The argument goes like this. Jehovah's Witness says. You say, well, hell's real. Because look, the rich man went to hell, see? And the Jehovah's Witness replies and says, ah, that was just a parable, right? Is that not how it goes?
[00:36:51] Thereby dismisses, was just made up.
[00:36:56] And this is how the argument goes.
[00:36:58] But actually this is a wrong understanding of this story and a wrong understanding of the parable. Actually, Luke 16 is a parable.
[00:37:09] But remember, parables are all true to life.
[00:37:14] The truth is, I think, I believe that because of the use of proper names that Lazarus was a real person.
[00:37:21] Right? That's what I think. But that doesn't have to be the case. Even if you said, even if I gave it to you, I said, okay, it's not a parable.
[00:37:29] It's not a parable.
[00:37:31] Whether it's a parable or not is really irrelevant because a parable is a true to life story. Otherwise it has no use at all. Now imagine, think about this, the question of whether it's a parable or not, Imagine Jesus, imagine Luke 16 is not a parable. I'm sorry, Luke 16 is a parable. Okay, so Jehovah's Witnesses are right. Luke 16 is a parable.
[00:37:55] It does not follow that hell is not real if it's a parable. You know why? Because parables are all about real things.
[00:38:06] So imagine Jesus wanted to teach a lesson and so he invented a guy named Lazarus and he invented this other guy, the rich man, and he invented this fairytale, magical, mythical place called hell to illustrate something. Well, there's a problem with that. How's he going to teach you and you don't even know about this place, that this place is a figment of imagination that he invented out of whole cloth.
[00:38:27] How's he going to teach you? You don't even know anything about that. The reason why the story of the rich man and Lazarus is effective is because we know hell is real. He talked about it a lot of other times. We know that it doesn't all hinge on this, but the whole reason it's effective is because when Jesus said the rich man lift up his eyes in hell, everybody's like, oh yeah, I know that place. Just like when he said the sower went to sow. And we're like, oh yeah, I know what that is.
[00:38:52] It's because it's true to life. So you could say it's a parable. And that doesn't mean it's not true because it's true to life. I think it's a real event. But even if it's not, it doesn't prove their case.
[00:39:03] And so the next time you meet a Jehovah's Witness and they say, oh well, that's just a parable, you say, so you're telling me Jesus just made this up?
[00:39:12] Like something out of Lord of the Rings or, you know, one of the, you know, one of these fantasy Star Trek or Star wars or whatever, whatever is your chosen fantasy genre or whatever. He just made it up just out of whole cloth just to prove that's ridiculous. The whole purpose of a parable is to use something real.
[00:39:33] And that's why it's effective, so you don't have to say it is or it isn't a parable. Beside the point.
[00:39:41] The rich man, if the rich man was a rich man, and I think he was, that was a real historical man.
[00:39:50] Even if he wasn't though, and some rich guy died without Christ, he would be in the same position in the same place.
[00:39:57] Right?
[00:39:59] This is why you have. It's important for us to understand how, what the parables are and how they're to be used.
[00:40:07] They're not made up stories. So don't let the cult, don't let the cultists try to convince you that this is some made up myth that Jesus is talking about.
[00:40:16] No, it's not. That's the whole definition of a parable. Let's pray together.
