at a parable this evening, but looking at some basic questions. One of those questions is, what is a parable? Right? That's a pretty fundamental question. What is a parable? And in our passage this evening, the disciples actually ask another fundamental question, and it is the question, why Jesus was using parables? As he taught the people, why parables? Why use parables to teach the great crowds that assembled around Jesus? For those men, those disciples, it was not obvious as to why Jesus was using these simple stories to teach the people. And the answer that Jesus gives to the disciples, the answer that he gives to this question, why parables, was no doubt surprising to them and may be surprising to you this evening. Tonight we'll look at Christ's answer to the disciples' question. And what we'll see is that this answer to this question, why parables, is an answer that reveals deep, And we might say even mysterious truths about the will of God and also about sinful human nature. And what we will see is far from being just simple, earthy, folksy stories, these parables are stories that are profound in meaning And what we're gonna see tonight is that these are stories that actually require something supernatural to happen before we even understand what they are about. So let's hear Matthew chapter 13, verses 10 through 17 this evening. Let's give our attention to the reading of God's holy word. Then the disciples came and said to him, why do you speak to them in parables? And 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 to the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance. But from 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, and 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's heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed. Lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, 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 long to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear and did not hear it. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we have had the privilege thus far this evening to sing your praises, and it is humbling to do so. We are reminded of your transcendence. We are reminded that we are small But we are also reminded of the gospel, that we are blessed because of your grace shown to us in Christ, the word made flesh. And as we come to your written word this evening, we pray that this Christ who is the great prophet and priest and king, that we would hear his voice this evening, that you would give us ears to hear, that you would give us open hearts We pray that your truth would sink down deep and would bear fruit in our lives. And we pray all of this in the name of our Savior. Amen. So the first question to consider, and I've already mentioned it, is what is a parable? What is a parable? Well, there is no agreed upon definition of a parable. You could look up many writers and many commentators, and you're gonna find a lot of different definitions. Some people define parables broadly. And by defining them broadly, they let in things, teaching of Jesus, that other people would say, well, I don't think that meets the standard. Others define the word more narrowly. Now, many times in the teaching of Christ, he used illustrations in the way that a pastor, a preacher might use an illustration in a sermon. And some people would include these illustrations in the number of parables. But when you think about these illustrations, they don't really seem to measure up. They don't really seem to rise to the level of a parable. Let me give you an example. In Matthew chapter 24, verses 43 and 44, Jesus speaks about his second coming, and he speaks about the need to be ready for his second coming. And in teaching that point, he uses the illustration of a thief in the night. You know this illustration well, but let me read you these words. But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore, you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. Now in those verses, Christ shines a light on a point he's trying to make, and he does so by drawing from earthly life. And yet that doesn't seem to rise to the level of a parable. So there are illustrations in the teaching of Jesus. There are parables. What is a parable? One definition, and this is a definition that maybe you've heard before, is that a parable is an earthly story with a heavenly meaning. Now that definition has gotten some mileage, probably partly because it's brief, it's easy to remember, but it also seems to fit in many ways the parables that Jesus tells, and for our purposes that definition seems to be the best. A parable is an earthly story with a heavenly meaning. With each parable, we've got to remember that Christ is not giving us a fable, right? He's not trying to just impart to us moral wisdom or moral truths. He's not telling a story with a moral punchline at the end. Jesus is giving us heavenly meaning. He's giving us spiritual truths. through these parables, but these truths don't come to us in a straightforward kind of way. In the parables, Jesus is teaching, but he's not teaching in a propositional manner. He's not teaching in the way that we see, for example, in the farewell discourse. or that we even saw in the Sermon on the Mount. The teaching in parables, we might say, is packaged, it's boxed, and it's wrapped. And the wrapping that surrounds that teaching is the wrapping of earthly imagery. The packaging of the truth that Jesus is giving is in the form of a simple story that he draws from everyday life. And at one level, you can appreciate each and every parable for just the story that it is. But to stop simply at the story level, would be to miss the bigger point of the parables as a whole and to miss the point of each individual parable itself. As with the Sermon on the Mount, the parables convey to us truths about the kingdom of God. about life in the kingdom, about the way the kingdom works. There is a spiritual core to each one of the parables, but as we'll see this evening, there is also a supernatural element that is necessary for a person to even understand the teaching that Jesus is giving in the parables. So why parables? That's the second question. Why parables? And that's the question that the disciples ask in our passage. Now, prior to our passage, and you can see this looking at your Bibles, Jesus had just told a parable and you see it there in Matthew 13 one, all the way down to verse nine. That parable is known as the parable of the sower. Some people call it the parable of the soils. And there were many who heard the parable that day. We see in verse one of chapter 13, that great crowds had gathered about Jesus on that day. And after the telling of this parable, the parable of the sower, our text begins, and it begins with the disciples confused. They come to Jesus with this question. We've already heard it, but let me read it again. Why do you speak to them in parables? The disciples are confused. Now, part of their confusion could have been that they heard this parable of the sower. and they didn't understand it. They didn't know what it meant. We know that the disciples did not automatically grasp the meaning of the parables that Jesus told. The meaning of the parables alluded them many times. And we see this in Matthew chapter 13 and verse 36. where we read, then he left the crowds, that is Jesus, and went into the house. And his disciples came to him saying, explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field. So sometimes the disciples were just confused about the meaning of a parable. But it seems here in our passage that their confusion was not so much about the parable of the sower, but their confusion was about this method of teaching. Why are you teaching them in this way? Why parables? And the answer that our Lord gave to the disciples on that day, the answer that we see before us this evening was most likely not what they were expecting. because he goes straight to the topic of the will of God. He goes straight to the mysterious purposes, and we might even say decree of God Almighty. Look at what Jesus says in verse 11. And 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. In answering the disciples' question, Jesus draws a distinction between the great crowds on the one hand and the disciples on the other. And what is the difference, Jesus says, between the great crowds and the disciples? Well, he says the difference has to do with knowledge. And knowledge of what? What Jesus says the difference between the crowds and the disciples is a difference of knowledge about what he calls the secrets of the kingdom of heaven. Now the word that is rendered secrets in the ESV and the passage that we have before us could also be translated as mysteries. You and I think about a mystery. We tend to think about something that is unknown, obviously, but something that if you get enough smart people together, you can figure it out, right? A mystery is unknown, but if you put enough ingenuity into it, if you put enough hard work, if you have enough smarts, you can solve the mystery. You can find out the answer. but the mysteries of the kingdom of God do not work in that way. And Jesus is stressing this point that the mysteries of the kingdom cannot be found out by human efforts, by human wisdom, by human reason, by human ingenuity, that these truths are more like secrets. They are unknown. but they are also hidden. They are unknown, but they are also hidden. You think about a secret, right? A secret is unknown and a secret is also hidden and a secret remains hidden until the person who knows that secret chooses to do what, chooses to tell it, chooses to reveal the secret, chooses to tell you the information. And Jesus here says that the father has decided by his sovereign will and in his sovereign purposes to reveal the secrets and the mysteries of the kingdom to the disciples. And here's an important point, but he has not decided to reveal them to everyone. He has not decided to reveal them to everyone. And so already at this point, in the initial words of Jesus' answer, we are in very deep waters, we might say. Standing behind these simple stories, these parables, is the mysterious, sovereign, deep purposes of God. Now there is a dimension to the parables that we might say is not unlike a riddle. And what do I mean? Well, riddles are often in story form, but in a riddle, you have a puzzle to solve, right? So we might think of Samson. You remember that well-known judge in the Old Testament. And Samson put a riddle before the Philistines, right? And the meaning of the riddle eluded the Philistines. They wanted to know, they could not get to it. They could not solve it. Samson knew the answer, but he was holding it back and it frustrated the Philistines. And parables are similar to riddles. They're not puzzles to solve, but the meaning of parables can be hard to find. And maybe that doesn't sound right to you because these stories are so simple, right? But it is the part of the nature of a parable that its meaning is not obvious. And if you think about a parable, whether it's a parable of Jesus or a parable of someone else, you know that this is true. The teller of the parable, knows the point behind the parable. The teller of the parable knows the meaning of the parable, but unless he reveals the point, unless he reveals the meaning of the parable, then that simple story could be interpreted in many, many different kinds of ways. Unless he reveals the point, the meaning, the core, the point of the story, as simple as it is, is hidden, it's cut off, it's closed to the hearers, unless the one who is telling it chooses to reveal the meaning of the parable. And that's the case with parables. And Jesus is saying that is the case with the secrets of the kingdom of heaven. The truth about the kingdom is real. It is objective truth. But as we've already said, human effort and ingenuity and wisdom cannot penetrate the mind of God and arrive at that truth. It must be revealed. It must be revealed by God. The truth about how to enter the kingdom, And the truth about life in God's kingdom cannot be discovered by man. They must be revealed by God. And therefore they remain hidden until God chooses to reveal them. And Jesus says that these truths are not revealed to everyone. And this was true in Jesus' ministry on earth. And this is true in Jesus' ministry this very day. We think about the words of the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 2, verses 6 and 7, where he says these words. Yet among the mature, we do impart wisdom. Although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age who were doomed to pass away, but we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory." A secret and hidden wisdom of God. Just as entrance into the kingdom of God is not by human effort, but ultimately by the grace of God, understanding the nature of the kingdom, the way it works, the secrets of the kingdom. Those are also by the grace and the revelation of God himself and not by human effort. And this means that there is a sense in which these simple stories, these parables that Jesus tells, that they have a concealment in them, a hidden aspect, that there's a sense in which truth is veiled in these stories. It is masked in a way. The holder of the meaning, the holder of the truth is Jesus himself. And these parables serve as a kind of test. And the test is, what will you do with the one who holds this meaning? What will you do with this Jesus? As New Testament professor Dan Doriani says, why parables? Because they test people. Would the people write Jesus off as a mere storyteller, or would they insist on learning what the parables meant? To get to the core of meaning, to get to the truth in these simple stories, you have to go to Christ. That's the point. You have to go to Christ. As Jesus said of himself in John 14 6, he is the way, he is the truth, he is the life. If you want to know the truth, you have to go to Christ himself. We see a similar dynamic at play in the miracles of Jesus, right? Many people followed Jesus because of his miracles. Maybe they had some kind of medical ailment, or they had a family member who was sick, ill in some kind of way, and they wanted Jesus to heal themselves or this family member. Others maybe wanted to just behold the wonders that Jesus worked. But what was the purpose of the miracles that Jesus worked? The ultimate purpose was to point back to Jesus himself. And the question underlying those miracles was, who is this Jesus? Another question underlying those miracles was, will you follow this Jesus? What will you do with this Jesus? Will you follow him? Many would rest content with the idea of Jesus as a wonder worker. who could fulfill a need that they had, or a relative had, or who just provided entertainment and gave you a story to tell someone else. But to stop there would miss the very purpose of the miracles. And many would be content to marvel at the stories of Jesus but they would stop there. That's as far as they would go. But would they follow Jesus? That is the question. Would they see him for who he truly is? Or would they remain blind to that reality? And Jesus then goes on to give a very important principle here in our passage in verse 12. Look at that verse. He says, for to the one who has, more will be given. and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away." Now, what does this mean? What does Jesus mean with this principle? Now, it should be said, first of all, I think, that this principle applies in many areas of life, just taken as a bare principle. Let me give you an example. Let's say that you want to learn a foreign language. You're an adult. Learning a foreign language is a very difficult endeavor. It's an uphill battle. But if you commit to the idea of learning a language, if you embrace that idea with all of its difficulty and you persist, then you will see fruit, right? If you have You commit to that pursuit, then more will be given. You will gain eventually, slowly, proficiency in the language. You will see some payoff, right? You will see one side of this principle, namely, to the one who has, more will be given. But what if you decide to stop for a year, or maybe even just a couple of months, depending on how far you had advanced? Then you will see the other side of this principle, which is from the one who has not. Even what he has will be taken away. When you push away your commitment to learning this language and using the language, you find that what you had evaporates. You lose even what you had. You can apply this principle to learning a musical instrument, training for a race. There are many areas in life where you could apply this principle. But what is the point of Christ here? What application is he making? Clearly, our Lord is speaking about spiritual truths, but what is he saying? Remember what we said just a few moments ago, that Jesus is, we might say, the key to the kingdom. The key to understanding the kingdom is Jesus himself, the one telling the parables, the one holding the truths in those parables. Reject Jesus and you cut yourself off from the kingdom and understanding anything about the kingdom and how it works. Let's think about in our own day as we think about this principle. Someone might say, I hear what you're saying, but these parables are not a mystery now. Maybe they were when Jesus first told them, but they're not a mystery now. We have Jesus telling the meaning of some of these parables, like the parable of the sower in this very chapter. We have preachers and teachers in churches who are trained to explain the Bible and teach us about these parables. But the questions in Jesus' day are the same today. And what are those questions? Who is Jesus? and will you follow this Jesus? You see, a person can sit in church week after week. They can listen to the Bible opened and expounded and explained. They can hear sermons on all of the parables and they can recite those sermons to you. But if they reject the key, if they reject Jesus and push him away, then they have not. And Jesus says, even what they have, will be taken away. If they reject Jesus, it will be like all those sermons that they have heard will just evaporate once they leave the building each week. They don't penetrate, they don't drill down, they don't bear fruit. The great truths don't sink into their ears. They don't go down into the heart. By rejecting Christ, they have not They don't have the key. And because of their rejection of him, even what they have, their Bible knowledge will be in a sense taken away. They won't get it. They won't truly understand, even though they may know much about the Bible. But for those who embrace Christ, those who say that Jesus is the son of God, the savior of sinners, and who say, I need him to save me from my sins, those who have their eyes open to that reality, who follow him, then Jesus says their knowledge will grow. It will grow in abundance, more will be given. Understanding will come and understanding that eludes the unbeliever. They will not simply know about Christ and the kingdom, they will know Christ. They will taste and see that the Lord is good. This person will have an abundance. They will know things that others do not know. and they will see things that others do not see. They will begin by the sovereign mercy of God to understand truths that others do not understand. And ultimately, the reason that they have and that others don't is due to the sovereign will of God, Jesus is saying. If God chooses to share the mysteries of the kingdom with a person, then they will in time see truly and hear truly. They will embrace Christ, but others will not. But there is something else here in our passage. And Jesus highlights something about human nature that seems hidden in a sense and not in others. And what he highlights is that with sinful humanity, there is not just an ignorance, but there is what we might call a willful ignorance. Others will see in a sense, they will hear in a sense, but they will not in others. Jesus says in verse 13, seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. You see the parables serve partly, this is not the whole of their purpose, but partly to expose unbelief. The crowd see Jesus, but they don't really see him, right? They don't see him as the son of God. They don't see him as the savior of sinners. They hear Jesus. But what they hear are stories and that's it. They don't truly hear the voice of the good shepherd. They don't truly hear the call to follow Jesus. The parables can reveal and often do the unbelief, the blindness, the deafness of the sinful human heart. And to drive this point home, Christ goes to the book of Isaiah. And that's the passage that he's citing. As you see, it's differently typeset in your Bibles. Isaiah chapter six, verses nine and 10. And why does Jesus go there? Well, he sees in the hearts of the people that day gathered around him fulfillment of the words spoken by Isaiah in his day. And that is not to say that the only fulfillment of that passage in Isaiah was the people that day. No, the words of Isaiah 6, 9, and 10 were true of the unbelieving human heart in Isaiah's day. They were true of the people gathered that day. and they are true of the unbelieving human heart today. The words of Isaiah chapter six, verses nine and 10 indicate that the ignorance of unbelievers is at its core, a willful ignorance. Look at what Christ says in verses 14 and 15. Verse 14 mentions, again, this idea of hearing but not understanding, of seeing but not perceiving. But then things move to a deeper level. We've seen Christ go to the deep level of the decrees of God, the will of God. And now he moves to uncover what is really going on in those who reject him. He mentions the human heart. He says here that the people's heart has grown dull. And literally the idea in the wording that is used there is the human heart is fat, it's thick. That sounds weird, right? What does that mean? That the heart is fat, that it's thick. And the idea is that there is a sluggishness to the human heart. to believe, to see, to hear anything that is spiritual. These ideas of fatness and thickness. You think about a slug. How quick is a slug? Not very, right? That's the human hearts when it comes to spiritual things. There's nothing in the natural human heart that gets excited and jumps at talk about the kingdom of God, at talk about the Messiah. The heart is fat, it's thick, it's slow, it's grown dull. And this is where Jesus goes. He says, for this people's heart has grown dull and with their ears, they can barely hear. And the idea is that the word is preached and spiritual truths are conveyed. And some stuff goes through to the physical ears, right? An unbeliever may be able to give you the outline of the sermon. Yeah, I can tell you the main points, but the true meaning, right? It doesn't penetrate. It doesn't get through. There is no understanding. There is no perception. And why? Here comes the hard truth. In verse 15, Jesus continues to describe the unbelieving hearts and he moves from the ears to the eyes, but there's this subtle shift. And I want you to see it in the language. He says, and their eyes, they have closed. Their eyes, they have closed. It's one thing to talk about ears that can barely hear. It's another to talk about someone who doesn't see because they have shut their eyes. And Jesus is hitting on a note of willful ignorance here. That people do not respond because they are dead in their sins, yes, but there is also another sense in which people do not want to respond. People do not want to see, they do not want to perceive, they do not want to hear, they do not want to understand. Leon Morris says of this language, this is probably to be understood as a stage worse than the preceding. It would be possible to have a problem of partial deafness, but the shutting of the eyes is a deliberate refusal to see. Why do people not turn to Christ? We'll learn more about this when we look at the parable of the sower. But at base, Jesus is saying, people don't want to turn to Christ. People do not naturally love Christ. They do not naturally love the kingdom of God. People reject Christ and they do so willfully. because people love the darkness more than the light, as it says in the gospel of John. Now, these are hard truths, right? I mean, who knew this was gonna be the first sermon in a series on the parables, but yet this is the foundational answer that Jesus gives as to why he teaches in parables. But there's one other thing in this 15th verse, and Jesus says why they have closed their eyes, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn and I would heal them. You see the unbelieving heart knows if you go to Jesus, what's he gonna do? He's gonna change you, right? He's gonna take away your idols. He's gonna take away your sin. And the unbelieving heart, the heart that is dead in sin, that is in bondage to sin, and this shows the extent of the bondage, right? Looks at that, that Jesus would take away the idols, that he would destroy sin, looks at that and says, that is death. That is death. Life is my idols. Life is my sin. I don't wanna go there. And Jesus says, turn and I would heal them, but they close their eyes so that they will not be healed. So that they will not be healed. They go where their master tells them to go. And their master is sin. And sin will never lead a person to Christ. But Jesus doesn't end in this place. He says in verse 16, some beautiful words, but blessed are your eyes for they see and your ears for they hear. He mentions blessing. He says that the eyes and ears of the disciples have been opened, that they see things, they perceive, they hear things, and they are beginning to understand And why? Because God had granted this to them. Because God in his grace and mercy had given them the privilege of seeing and hearing. And as Christians here tonight, This is true of us, that God has given us the privilege to see that we need Christ, to go to this Christ and to embrace him in faith, to see him as not just a storyteller or a great moral teacher, but to see him as the one who is vital for life and salvation. Our ears have been opened to hear the good news of the gospel. It has not bounced off our ears, but it has penetrated into the heart. We are blessed and we should think about this. We should think about this and we should praise God because brothers and sisters, not everybody sees, not everybody hears, right? And that is sad. And we should mourn over those who do not see. and those who do not hear, but we should also praise the Lord that we do, because it is not by our doing. And these same parables, to fit in with the principle that Jesus told, for those who know the Lord Jesus do not hide things, but these simple stories actually give us more truth. more truth about our beloved Savior, more truth about the greatness of the kingdom and the life in this kingdom. And this is the beauty of these parables for the church, as these are given to those who are blessed, to those who have been given eyes to see and ears to hear. And there are riches in these simple stories. And let me end with this. This evening, if you do not know Christ, and I'm aware, and I've said this before, that we record these, and who knows who hears these, but if you do not know Christ, my encouragement to you, I would implore you to do what he says here, inciting this passage from Isaiah, to turn to him and be healed, take hold of Christ, call out to him, run to him, and he will save you from your sin, because he has said that all who go to him sincerely in faith, he will not cast out." And Jesus here at the very end, to put the blessed perspective of the disciples in the right position, he says, Many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see and did not see it and to hear what you hear and did not hear it. Who's Jesus talking about? He's talking about people like Isaiah who did not hear these words of Jesus, not because He was reprobate, not because he was doomed to eternal destruction, but because he did not have the privilege in the unfolding of God's redemptive plan to be there in that day. But what is Jesus getting at? What was the longing of Isaiah's heart and the longing of Abraham's heart? It wasn't just to hear some neat stories. It was a longing for the Messiah. It was a longing for Christ. The one who is the way, the truth, and the life. They anticipated his coming and Jesus is saying, I am here. And you are blessed not just because you've been given understanding, but you are blessed positionally in history because of where you are. And brothers and sisters, this time of year, we think about the coming of Christ, but we also think about the fact that this Christ is coming again. And we anticipate that coming. And we long for that day. And we should pray more often, come Lord Jesus. And a question that we should put before ourselves as we end tonight is do we long for Christ? As we read these parables, we should be praying as we study these and look at these, that our hearts would be drawn to this savior, that we would have a longing to know him more and a longing to see and behold him. But when he comes, whenever that will be, the door will be closed. There will be finality. There will no longer be any opportunities for those who sit in unbelief. And so there is an urgency as we look at these parables. As Jesus is saying, the kingdom is offered to those, but will you come to this Christ? And one day when Jesus comes again, there will be the consummation and what a glorious day for God's people. but for those who do not know Christ, they will be left on the outside. So let us be thankful that we are blessed, not by anything that we've done, but by the grace of God. We have been given ears to hear, we've been given eyes to see, and let us pray and long for that day when we will be able to see Christ with our physical eyes. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your revelation. We thank you for your grace and mercy. We thank you for this Jesus who has become to us, as you have given us eyes to see him rightly, salvation in all its fullness. And may we look to him always. May we grow in the knowledge of him. And as we pursue studying these parables, may we not lose sight of him. And we pray all of this in Jesus' name. I invite you to stand.