Now, I'll tell you just as a very brief introductory comment that what is the dominant section of this first half of Mark chapter 4 is obviously what's known as the parable of the sower. Some call it the parable of the soils. That's the dominant thing here. Now, Jesus gives this parable in this passage, and then it would seem that after the crowd disperses, his close people to him ask him, what does the parable mean? And so Jesus then explains the parable to them. So in a sense, you can say from the perspective of a 21st century reader, the parable of the sower comes to us twice, back to back, right in the same passage. As given by Jesus, and then the exposition of that parable also given by Jesus. So I'm making this introductory comment so you know that I probably won't today get to too much expositing of the actual parable. That will come next week when we get to the second part of this and Jesus gives the explanation. But what is important, and I think a good subject for learning and edification for Christians all by itself, is this introduction to the fact that Jesus was teaching in parables, why he taught in parables, and what those parables were almost universally revealing and pointing to. We sometimes will look at the Gospels or even the entire Bible, certainly the New Testament, and we might reach the conclusion that the dominant message, say in a book like the Gospel of Mark, is it's showing us how we can be saved from our sins. And that, of course, is true. That is the central message of the whole Bible, that Jesus Christ came to pay the price for our sins, to bring salvation to those who would believe. However, if you're going to read this Gospel account and all of the Gospels faithfully and carefully, you realize that Jesus went beyond just, here's what you need to do in order to be saved. You're a sinner. I'm dying for your sins. I will rise from the dead. And if you believe and you humble yourself and repent, I will save you from your sins. That call of salvation is critical, but it is not all that Jesus talked about, because what happens when a person believes and gets saved? Jesus taught about that as well. And so what happens is if you read this parable and many of the other parables, this whole section of parables here in Mark 4 especially, what you realize is a great emphasis of the teaching ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ was the coming of His Kingdom. The Kingdom of God. Because when someone is saved, it's not just my sins are forgiven, so now I can go to heaven. It is that. And hallelujah, praise the Lord, it is that. And of course we should rejoice in that. But the Lord isn't just about saving an individual here and saving an individual there, or even just saving a group of individuals. The Lord is, through the turning of the pages of history as time goes by, He is building up towards a great consummation of all of human existence, which results in the establishment of His kingdom among His subjects. And this is a major thing that is revealed throughout the pages of scripture. So I'm going to read to you the parable of the sower now, the first part of this, just the first 12 verses. And like I said, the parable's content itself I'm going to leave aside for next week. And this week, we're going to focus on the fact that Jesus taught in parables and why he did and what they were for. That's a message all by itself. So here we go. Ready? Mark chapter 4, the first 12 verses. And again, he began to teach by the sea. And a great multitude was gathered to Him, so that He got into a boat and sat in it on the sea. And the whole multitude was on the land facing the sea. Then He taught them many things by parables, and said to them in His teaching, Listen! Behold, a sower went out to sow, And it happened, as he sowed, that some seed fell by the wayside, and the birds of the air came and devoured it. Some fell on stony ground, where it did not have much earth, and immediately it sprang up, because it had no depth of earth. But when the sun was up, it was scorched, and because it had no root, It withered away. And some seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no crop. But other seed fell on good ground and yielded a crop that sprang up, increased and produced, some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred. And he said to them, he who has ears to hear, let him hear. But when he was alone, those around him with the twelve asked him about the parable. And he said to them, to you it has been given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God. But to those who are outside, all things come in parables. So that, seeing they may see and not perceive, and hearing they may hear and not understand, lest they should turn and their sins be forgiven them. And then verse 13 is a very important statement all by itself, but it really lends itself to the explanation of that specific parable. So that's where we'll pick up the reading next week is with verse 13. So when you read that, you get the sense, right? is we're told in the very beginning of this, just briefly, that Jesus again began to teach by the sea. So you can see that while Jesus performed lots of miracles, did lots of signs, really the chief thing about Jesus' time on Earth before he gave his life for us, these last three years where he was like publicly serving God and ministering, the teaching was the big part of it. I would put forth to you that even the miraculous, the signs and the wonders that he did, the point of those signs and wonders was to give credence in the minds of the hearers to the things that he was saying. Not that Christ's teaching needs any of that, right? But that's what the point of that was, was to get the attention of people. And so temporal blessings in the form of miracles were given in almost innumerable volume, but the point of all of them was not just, and this is what modern Christians miss sometimes, the point of the healings and the feedings and the restoration of certain physical deformities and things like this. The point of it was not to show that Jesus was someone who will just take care of all of our problems in life. The point of it was to show this is someone you need to listen to. Because he was teaching about something far more important than you getting whatever blessing it was that you need in your life. Though God cares about those things and those things are important. But they're temporal. Whatever miraculous thing God might do in the circumstances of someone's life, it's temporary. granted a healing from an infirmity, they're still going to grow old and die someday. When he fed the 5,000, they were probably hungry again before the sun went down, right? I mean, obviously. People that got their hearing back. People that got their eyesight back. That's marvelous and magnificent and just makes the experience of life so much more wonderful and obviously, right, and good. But still, all of it passes away when you pass away. But what Jesus taught, that was something that was about forever. You understand? So the point of the things that he did was to get people to really pay heed to what was already taught about him in the scriptures and what he himself was teaching in his life. So he has this great multitude again. And it says that he got into a boat and sat in it on the sea. And we saw back in the previous chapter that that was Christ's instruction. Make sure you have a boat ready in case the multitude crushes me. And apparently that was, as you would expect, very wise foresight on Jesus' part. And here he is utilizing that. And you know, sometimes This is quite a ministry, right? I mean sometimes like when there are street fairs or other events, we from the church will set up our booth and we'll go out and we'll try to talk to people on the street and give out lots and lots of gospel literature and you've seen maybe some videos online of other really good and faithful brothers and sisters that go out on the street and they preach, street preachers, right? Jesus, I guess you could say, was the first boat preacher, right? I mean, that's what he is. He's standing in a boat here that's pushed off into the water because the multitude is crushing so much that the boat becomes a platform to get a little space away from the crowd so more people can see him. And more people can hear him. And seeing him, mostly it's important to hear him. But being able to see the speaker, I mean, there's a reason why churches are built like this. And I'm standing up here, and you're sitting down there. It's got nothing to do with my importance, because I have none. It's just because God designed us to respond to communication that way. So there you see Jesus doing the same thing. Right? So that's the scene. And then it says, verse 2, he taught them many things by parables. What's a parable? A parable is the best explanation that has floated around among Christians for my whole life as a Christian. that I've heard, and it's entirely sufficient, is that it's a story about something natural that explains something spiritual, right? An allegory, you might say. Some people might call it like a picture to explain some teaching. But it's an earthly story with a spiritual message, right? So Jesus is trying to teach something deeply important and spiritual. And he gives an illustration, essentially, to teach this spiritual principle. He's not trying to necessarily tell a story about farming, right? But he's using the story about farming to describe what? His kingdom. His eternal kingdom. So that's why Jesus taught by parables. And then comes the parable itself. And we're not going to, like I said, spend a lot of time explaining it. But you can see that's the arena of life that Jesus draws upon in order to make an explanation to the people of Galilee. That multitude, they would have fairly universally had some understanding. I mean, very, very much an agricultural world. An agricultural society. Lots and lots of farmers and even if a person wasn't a farmer, They certainly had at least a farmer or two in their family and were very accustomed with the practice and with the trade. And so to use a story about someone going out to sow seed, and some of them fall out as he's doing it, some of them fall on shallow stony ground, Some of them fall on ground among thorns that grow up alongside the plants and choke it off so there's no fruit that comes on it. But then some of the seeds fall in good soil and that produces the crop. That would be something that would make the hearer realize, ah, okay, I understand this. If, if what? if they had ears to hear. And that brings us to the point of teaching parables. That's all I'm going to say about the parable today itself. I know it seems, it's even awkward for me to not talk about the parable more, but we know because we have the text in front of us that Christ's own explanation of the parable is coming. So we'll come back to it next week. But that gives us, that brings us then to where we want to spend most of our time today, which is talking about the reason for these parables. And that starts in that statement in verse 9. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. Even if you don't immediately, it doesn't pop off the page what that means, One thing you must instantly recognize, some people can understand Jesus' parables and some of them can't. If he says, he who has ears to hear, let him hear, what he's doing there is he's making a dividing line between people who have ears and people who don't. Obviously not physical ears, but he's talking about understanding. in them the capacity to hear and understand why he's saying it and what he's talking about. Some have that. Some do not. What do I see in that? I see the sovereignty of God in that. I see a God who is sovereign over predestination and election. I see a God that is sovereign over the hearts and the minds of every individual. And God alone is sovereign over that. As far as we are concerned, we preach the Gospel to every creature as we are commanded to because we have no such ability to say of someone, there is someone who maybe is one of God's elect, There is someone who maybe is not. Many churches, including this one, are filled with people who before they were saved, I myself being one of them, you would probably never have looked at and said, there's someone who's going to make a really good Christian someday, right? And there are churches that have people in them who are Listen, there's wheat and tares. There are people who are very religious that are not actually Christian at all. Right? So we don't have the eyes to look with that. God does. So Jesus gives out a teaching that is intended for a targeted audience. Those who have ears to hear. Those to whom it is given to understand, which is what he goes on to say. Now look at this. When he was alone, So now the crowd's gone, right? You see verse 10? The crowd's gone now. And when he was alone, that must have been profound by the way. I take that literally here. I mean, there are times when you read of a teaching, like when Peter preaches in the book of Acts, and we're going to make reference to that in a minute, but when Peter preaches at Pentecost in the book of Acts in chapter 2, when you get to the end of his sermon, it actually says, and with many other things, you know, they exhorted the crowd, right? Well, you don't really see that here. I take this literally and I find it to be very powerful and profound that Jesus went out in this boat, gathered this crowd and said that and then left. Right? It's like, whoa. He goes out, he's got this big crowd, gets everyone's attention, gives out a parable that probably takes not very long to speak live and in person, and then ends it with, he who has ears to hear, let him hear. And then in verse 10, very abruptly, he's alone. But when he was alone, those around him, with the twelve, So it's not just the 12, right? Pick up on those clues as well. More than just the 12 here. Other disciples. Those around him with the 12 asked him about the parable. Now, there's a couple of things. There's two very important things now in the rest of this that we need to take note of to understand. To you, it has been what? Given. What is necessary for something to be given? There are three things that are necessary. You need a thing. You need a giver. And you need a receiver. Right? So the thing that is given, we are told. The thing that is given is to know the mystery of the Kingdom of God. Right? So the thing is the mystery of the Kingdom of God. Knowing it. understanding it, right? The giver, well, let's talk first about the obvious one, the recipient. Who's the recipient? His twelve and his other disciples who are around him. In the strict context of this story, they're the ones to whom this is given. Right? So I think we can understand that in a modern way looking back on it as this is something for believers. Believers have the capacity to hear and understand the Word of God. And listen, that makes perfect sense because we know that the Apostle Paul wrote that the things of the Spirit of God can't be understood unless you have the Spirit of God in you, right? The natural man The natural man, as Paul says, is a reference to the unsaved man. The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, nor can he. And he goes on to describe how they're spiritually discerned and spiritually understood. And unless you have The Divine Teacher, God, the Holy Spirit in you, whom you receive when you repent and believe the Gospel of Jesus' Son, you are without that Divine Witness in your soul who is with you forever. to teach you and help you understand things. It doesn't mean that a mind cannot comprehend like what the words are. Like an unsaved person can read words and understand, oh yeah, that's what he's talking about. This is deeper than that. At a deeper level, if I can put it that way. At the level of spirit, at the way of not just understanding it in your mind, but embracing it by faith. and having it have a life transformative effect on you. You understand? Deeper. That's what Jesus is talking about. To them, his disciples, believers, it is given to understand the things that he's talking about here. In the particular case, the mystery of the kingdom of God. Now, what didn't I describe yet? The giver. Who's the giver? Well, while it's not stated in that particular sentence right there, obviously this is understood as God himself. God is the giver. Christ's Father in heaven. He was always talking. especially in the Gospel of John about how he said only the things that his father told him and he taught him to say, right? So there's this tremendous giving of knowledge and wisdom by God to those who humble themselves and seek Him. It's why the book of Proverbs says that the fear of Yahweh is the beginning of knowledge, right? But fools despise wisdom. and instruction, right? So the fear of the Lord is an Old Testament way to describe that faith relationship between a person and God. They recognize who God is. They recognize what God has done. They recognize everything about God and His glory and His beauty and what He's capable of. And they tremble in awe before Him and bow before Him and believe on Him. That's the starting point for all spiritual knowledge. To reject that is to be a fool and to actually despise wisdom and instruction. So this is similar in concept and consistent with that. So Jesus says then, so you know who the recipient is, you know what it is that's given, and you know who the giver is. So when he was alone, those around him with the twelve asked him about the parable, and that's his answer. And then you come and he says, the mystery of the kingdom of God. I'm going to explain that a little more, but I'll just go ahead and say now that that concept of mystery is what? A mystery is something when you talk about, forget about anything you know about that word. and the way it's used like in modern literature or in movies or something like that, it's got nothing to do with what's being talked about here. That term, mystery, as it appears numerous times in the New Testament, is used to describe something that was revealed previously, maybe through one of the prophets, somewhere in the Old Testament, but was not fully understandable until Jesus came along. That's what a mystery is. A mystery is something that, this is not sufficient but a way to say it, a mystery is something that BAM! That's what that's talking about. It's something that becomes crystal clear in Christ. There are many such things that are mysteries. Famously, in Ephesians chapter 5, the Apostle Paul described marriage. as a mystery, right? Meaning that marriage being the relationship between a husband and wife actually is something that became fully understood in Christ. In that a man and a woman married to one another, the husband is like Christ in that he loves his wife and gives himself for her. And the wife is like the church in that she gladly submits herself to her husband, like the church submits himself itself to Jesus Christ as Lord. That's something that became known in Christ. And so Paul describes it when he says, I tell you a mystery in Ephesians chapter five. This is the same thing here. It's a mystery, the mystery of the kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is something that was prophesied much in the Old Testament. And I want to talk to you a little bit about the Kingdom of God here. There are so many places where I could talk about the Kingdom that is coming in its fullness. throughout the pages of Old Testament Scripture and New Testament Scripture. I'm going to mention some verses in the New Testament in a minute. But I just picked out three passages of Scripture to read to you from the Old Testament. One, pre-exilic prophet. Understand what I mean by that. When the Jews were taken into exile by the Babylonians. You kind of have, among the writings of the prophets in the Old Testament, you can kind of divide it into three categories. There are the pre-exilic prophets. They're the ones who prophesied against Judah and warned them of things before the Babylonians took them captive. Then there are One in particular, well more than one, but there is the exilic prophets, ones who prophesied and wrote what they wrote during the period of exile. And then there are the post-exilic prophets, the last few shorter books of the Old Testament, which are prophets who spoke during the time after Israel came, the Jews came back after their 70 year captivity in Babylon. All three of these categories of prophets looked ahead to the coming kingdom without knowing anything about Jesus of Nazareth. And this is why Jesus here says about the kingdom makes the reference to the mystery of the kingdom of God. Because what was prophesied by all of those prophets in the Old Testament about his coming kingdom was going to become crystal clear in the king himself, which was Jesus. Do you follow that? Isaiah, Isaiah was a pre-exilic prophet. Isaiah said this, famously, For unto us a child is born. Unto us a son is given. And the government will be upon his shoulder. You know this, right? And his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. That's all very well known. What should be equally well known though is that that's not the end of it. Here's what he goes on to say. And of the increase of His government, right? The child that is born. The Messiah. Of the increase of His government and peace, there will be no end. That's a kingdom. In other words, the child that's going to be born is going to govern over a realm that is never going to end. And what is that realm? He goes on to say, upon the throne of David and over his kingdom to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. Isn't that glorious? So before the exile, among many other statements, Isaiah prophesied that this child who was going to be born was actually going to be the king who was going to reestablish the throne of his ancestor, David, and his kingdom was going to increase and increase and increase, and his kingdom was never going to end, and it was going to start when he was here and began to rule and continue to go on forward even forever. That's the kingdom. Now, Isaiah was 700 years before Jesus was here. This is why elsewhere in the New Testament it says that the prophets longed to look into these things. What things? The things that we know because we know of Jesus who fulfilled these things. Jesus is the one who brings all these things together. Jesus is the one who turns mysteries into knowledge. Do you understand? Do you understand that? Then during the exile, there's Daniel. And Daniel, the way this came about, blows the mind. The king that conquered the Jews and took them captive was Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king. One night, Nebuchadnezzar had a dream that terrified him. And it terrified him so much and had such an impact on him that when he woke up, he called together all of his magicians, and said, you need to tell me what this dream means. And they all say, okay, lay it on us, King Nebuchadnezzar. And he says, no, you need to tell me what the dream was and then tell me what it means. What? No one can do that. I can't tell you what your dream was. You have to tell me and then I'll tell you what it means. Nebuchadnezzar knew that these guys could make anything up. So to know that they really had some divine power at work, he said, no, you tell me what my dream was and then you tell me what it means. And he starts killing them. But somebody knew of Daniel, right? And so they call in Daniel and Daniel prays. He prays to the Lord. Lord, give me wisdom. Give me understanding. Give me knowledge. And Daniel has revealed to him by God what Nebuchadnezzar's dream was and what Nebuchadnezzar's dream meant. And he goes and he explains it and then he writes it down. So Pastor Lou can read it to you today. And so many I've read it over the years. And you know what the dream was about? It was about the Kingdom of God. Listen to this. Well, I'm not going to read the whole thing because the whole thing is long, but basically Nebuchadnezzar saw this statue, and there's the head of gold, and the chest section was made of silver, and kind of the hip torso area was made of bronze, and the legs were made of iron, and the feet were made of mixed iron and clay. And they represented, starting with the head of gold, which represented Nebuchadnezzar's king himself, it represented all of the eras of Gentile kingdoms that had dominance over Israel, over the people of the Jewish people. Alright? So, as Daniel's explaining this to Nebuchadnezzar, whose jaw is probably resting somewhere on the floor, Then he says this, Daniel says to Nebuchadnezzar, you watched, this is part of the dream, after he tells him about the statue, he says this, you watched while a stone was cut without hands, which struck the image on its feet of iron and clay and broke them in pieces. Then the iron, the clay, so that's the feet and the legs, The bronze, the silver, and the gold, the whole thing were crushed together and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors. The wind carried them away so that no trace of them was found. And that stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. Then you know what Daniel did? He explained what it meant. And he wrote it down. And as I said, he explained what the different materials in the statue represented, the kingdoms, right? The head of gold represented the Babylonian kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar. The silver section represented the Medo-Persian kingdom under Darius and then Cyrus the Great. Then The bronze represented the kingdom of Alexander the Great, and the legs represented the Romans, right? And these were all empires through that era of history who had dominance over the Jewish people, Daniel's people. But that's not the final kingdom, is it? What is? Well, listen to this. In the days of these kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed. And the kingdom shall not be left to other people. It shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms and it shall stand forever in as much as you saw the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and the gold, the great God has made known to the king, you Nebuchadnezzar, He's made known to you what will come to pass after this. The dream is certain and its interpretation is sure. So you see, now again, centuries before Jesus was here, that is a picture of the second coming of Jesus Christ, at which time he's going to dismantle and destroy all earthly rule and establish his own kingdom, which will go on forever and ever and ever. You and I know that because it's been given to us in the Spirit of God to understand the mystery of the Kingdom of God. Give God thanks. Give God praise. We know what's coming. Hallelujah. And Jesus says to His own disciples sitting there, everything comes in parables because only to you. Is it given to know the things of the mystery of the kingdoms of God? Because this kingdom, which is still in its mystery stage when the prophets are writing about it, becomes something crystal clear in Jesus Christ the Lord. Zechariah was a post-exilic prophet. So this is comprehensive. And listen, I'm sharing with you three prophecies among dozens and dozens of them that make reference to the future kingdom of Jesus Christ in the Old Testament. So Isaiah prophesies before the captivity. Daniel prophesies in response to a pagan king's dream during the captivity. And then Zechariah prophesize after the captivity when they're setting up Temple 2, you might say, right? They were in captivity under the Babylonians The Babylonians were conquered by the Medo-Persian Empire while the Jews were captive there. The Babylonians were very harsh to the Jews. The Persians were very generous towards people of other nations and other religions, including the Jews. Which is a great irony, right? Because the Persians are the ancestors of the modern-day people of Iran. who don't actually get along with the Jewish people very well in the modern world, as you say. But it was under Cyrus the Great, the Persian king, that the Jews were allowed to go back to Judea to reestablish that kingdom. And while they're rebuilding, they become discouraged. And so God raises up a man named Zechariah to prophesy to them, to encourage them to keep building and keep doing the work. And part of Zechariah's prophecy is this. Zechariah chapter 14 and verse 5. Thus, Yahweh my God will come. God's coming, right? And all the saints with you, you meaning God. It shall come to... So, Zechariah out of nowhere is prophesying about the return of Jesus Christ. I didn't include it in the selection here, but some verses before this, it actually says that when He comes, He sets His feet on the Mount of Olives and it rips in half. That's coming. We know that. That's one of the mysteries of the Kingdom of God that is understood in Jesus Christ. He's going to descend. And no, not just mere coincidence, where did Jesus ascend from? Where did He ascend from? Yes, thank you. The Mount of Olives, right? Jesus ascended from the Mount of Olives, He's coming back to the same spot that He left from. And when He sets His foot on it, that mountain's going to tear in half. And Zechariah goes on to prophesy, Thus the Lord my God will come, and all the saints with you. It shall come to pass in that day that there will be no light the lights will diminish. It shall be one day which is known to the Lord, neither day nor night, but at evening time it shall happen that it will be light, and in that day it shall be that living waters shall flow from Jerusalem, half of them towards the eastern sea, half of them towards the western sea, in both summer and winter it shall occur, and the Lord shall be King over all the earth, and it shall be in that day, the Lord is one. So you have all of these prophecies of this kingdom that's coming. And the kingdom's connected to David. And this descendant of David who's going to come. And that's all they knew. And they didn't have full understanding of it even when Jesus was here. That's why they cried, Hosanna! Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. They saw Him. Jesus as the descendant of David that was going to establish this kingdom. But they didn't understand that he came at that moment to pay the penalty for their sins in his death. And then he will return again one day and absolutely establish this kingdom that the prophets prophesied about for so many centuries. Isn't this marvelous and glorious? And so Jesus teaches in parables because it's going to be those who love Him, those who fear Him, those who believe Him, those who trust in Him, those who have His Spirit in Him, those who have been born again by the power of His Spirit, they're the ones that are going to get it. Not just mentally comprehend it, but they're going to get it and they're going to be able to say, Amen, yes Lord, even so, come quickly Lord Jesus. Wow. All right. You guys are into this. I like that. So back in the Gospel of Mark. He actually quotes in verse 12 from Isaiah. He quotes from the section of Isaiah that's back a little before the prophecy I read in Isaiah, Chapter six, when Isaiah is before the throne of God, that very famous scene where, you know, holy, holy, holy, And Isaiah says, I'm undone. I'm a man of unclean lips because my eyes have seen the king. And one of those creatures is dispatched to take a coal from the altar that's before God and touches it to his lips. And he's made clean. And in that passage. Is what Jesus quotes in verse 12. To explain this concept of parables. Being about. opening the understanding of those who love Him and fear Him and trust Him and believe Him, given from God on high in His sovereignty. Seeing they may see and not perceive, and hearing they may hear and not understand, lest they should turn and their sins be forgiven them. Right? So, when he says that, it almost sounds like what he's saying is And understand, this is one of those old examples of an Old Testament prophecy that it had some direct, immediate relevance to Isaiah's ministry. Because Isaiah was preaching to the children of Israel, right? But Jesus, by pulling it out of there and applying it to his own situation, shows that When Isaiah was given that word, it was never just about Isaiah, it was about the whole thing. It was about in Jesus' day, and even today it continues to be true as well. It almost sounds like what the Lord was communicating through Isaiah was, I want you to preach with them, but I don't want anyone to repent and believe. I want you to go and preach and shut their eyes. It's kind of what it says in Isaiah chapter 6. I want you to go preach and shut their ears. But you can see in Jesus' explanation that that's not really fully the truth, right? What Jesus is talking about is, listen, when the Word of God is preached, it never returns void. You know that, right? That's Isaiah also. It never returns void. It always accomplishes the purpose for which it's sent. You need to understand that the purpose for which it's sent, that's defined by God, not by us. Right? The purpose for which it's sent is sometimes to bring someone to repentance. Sometimes the purpose for which it's sent is to pronounce judgment as well. Right? And whatever purpose God may have, the preaching of His Word accomplishes it. Always! Always! When the Gospel was preached in the days of the apostles that you read about in the Bible, when people got saved, that was the Word of God accomplishing the purpose for which it was sent. When Paul preached in Athens and talked about the resurrection, and they said, ah, nah, we'll hear about it some other time, and they walked away, that was the purpose for which it was sent. Don't get discouraged if people don't immediately respond when you share the Gospel with them. His Word always accomplishes the purpose for which it's sent. The only wrong way to preach the Word of God is to shut your mouth and not preach it. And you preach the Word of God to an audience of people that hate you for preaching it, God's purposes are still being accomplished. You don't know. You don't know what those purposes are. You might be planting a seed in someone that might come to fruition years from then. Right? So Jesus is explaining that the purpose of teaching parables was to instruct those who are His. while keeping those who are not in darkness. And that's what the Word of God does. The Word of God is described as a what? Sword. That's what swords do. They cut with violence sometimes. That's what the Word of God does. It's a sharp, two-edged sword that goes on to describe how it divides between joints and marrow and all. I mean, it just divides, right? And that's the parables. What did the parables do? It divided people into those who have ears and those who don't. The thing that Jesus is talking about with these parables, and you'll see as we continue to go through the chapter, is the Kingdom of God. And I'm going to use my last few minutes here just to give you a survey from the New Testament of the discussion of the Kingdom of God. Because the Kingdom of God was a mystery. It was something that was always real and out there and prophesied, but not really fully understood until Jesus came. Let me read a few scriptures to you. Just listen to this. Fasten your seatbelts. We're going to go fast here, right? Here we go. In the beginning of the Gospel of Luke, the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary. and told Mary, you're going to conceive in your womb and bring forth a son. He shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the son of the highest. And the Lord God will give him the throne of his father, David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. And of his kingdom, there will be no end. So that's how it started out before Jesus was even born. He was announced as the king, bringing God's kingdom. When he was 30 years old, John the Baptist showed up on the scene. And John the Baptist preached, Matthew 3, verse 2. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Not repent because the Messiah is here. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Right? It was always discussed in terms of the kingdom. in this very Gospel of Mark that we're reading in chapter 1. It says, after John the Baptist was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom of God and saying, the time is fulfilled and the Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the Gospel. Matthew chapter 4 tells us that Jesus went all about Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom, and healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people. When Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount, in the Beatitudes, He said, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. When He taught them to pray in the Sermon on the Mount, part of the prayer was, Your Kingdom come! Then He taught them as they were living their lives in the Sermon on the Mount, seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. We're already going to be talking about all the parables, so I won't quote any more of that. But towards the end of His life, when Jesus gave them what we call the Olivet Discourse, when he talks about the end times. In Matthew 24 it says, this Gospel of the Kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come. You know, other teachings. He tells a group in the Gospel of Mark, assuredly I say to you, whoever does not receive the Kingdom of God as a little child, will by no means enter it. And when He is with His disciples at the Passover, right before His crucifixion, He says, I say to you, I will no longer drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the Kingdom of God. There's more. I already mentioned the cry of the people Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed is the kingdom of our Father David that comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest. That's what they cried out. How powerful is this? We just read it recently. When Jesus is before Pontius Pilate, and Pontius Pilate says what? What have you done? You know, you must have done something that they brought you here. What have you done? Jesus answered, in the moment of his suffering and said, my kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight so that I should not be delivered to the Jews, but now my kingdom is not from here. And Pilate responds, Pilate like makes a logical conclusion there and says, ah, are you a king then? Jesus answered, you ready? You say rightly that I am a king. For this cause, I was born. And for this cause, I have come into the world that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice, he said, right? On the cross, There are thieves on the cross, one on either side of Him, on their own crosses. And they're mocking Him. But as the day wears on, one of them repents. You know the story, right? What does he say to Jesus? Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom. Listen, listen. You see, the people that believe, get it! Even a guy who was a convicted thief and was dying on a cross got it, and it was given to him to understand the mystery of the kingdom of God. Oh, this guy on the cross in the middle, he hasn't done anything wrong. We deserve to die for our crimes. He's done nothing wrong. When you come into your kingdom, remember me. And Jesus says, today you will be with me in paradise, because to him was given to understand the mystery of the kingdom of God. When he rises from the dead, there's a lot of this. The New Testament is filled with kingdom language. When he rises from the dead, it says they're all gathered together and they asked him a question. You know what they asked him? Lord, will You at this time restore the Kingdom to Israel? That's what's on... Okay, now we understand. You came to die. You paid the price for our sins. Thank You. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. You rose from the dead. We believe it's You. You're the Messiah. You're the Son of God. Now You're going to establish the Kingdom, right? Because that's what they were expecting, that Messiah would bring the Kingdom of God. And they were right to expect it. But the answer that they got is in part the reason why we're all here today. He said to them, it's not for you to know the times or the seasons. Not for you to know when. which the Father has put in his own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. In other words, the Holy Spirit's going to come upon you. You're going to have power. You're going to preach the gospel. And that's how I'm going to build my kingdom. I'm going to build my kingdom by the gospel being preached. And my kingdom is not going to be made up of borders or armies or governments. My kingdom is going to be made up of humble, repentant souls who believe my gospel. And it gives God great glory that there are not many noble, not many rich, not many famous, not many of the great people of the earth, but he chooses the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. That's how God builds his kingdom. That's why Psalm 2 tells us that when all of the kings of the earth gather themselves against the Lord and against His anointed, it says, He who sits in the heavens shall laugh. The Lord shall hold them in derision. Then He shall speak to them in His wrath and in His distress them, in His deep displeasure. And what does He say? Yet I have set my King on my holy hill of Zion. And that's the Messiah, Jesus. You remember a long, long time ago? A long, long time ago in a land far, far away? that we were studying the book of Revelation. Do you remember that? Anyone remember that? I remember it. We're gonna come back to it. Not sure when. You remember where we left off? We left off in chapter 11. Because there are 22 chapters and we did the first half. We did the first 11 chapters. So we got another half out there and we're gonna get to it. Did you remember where we left off in chapter 11? We left off right around this statement right here. The seventh angel sounded his trumpet. And then there were loud voices in heaven saying, the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever. Hallelujah. That's a prophecy of what's coming. That trumpet hasn't sounded yet. But after all of the tribulation and the judgments and everything, almost all of it, there was still some more after that. But when all this judgment and tribulation is poured out on all the earth, And all these angels lined up after all the seals are opened and six angels blow their trumpets before. When the seventh angel blows his trumpets, it's going to trigger the pouring out of these bowls of judgment, just finishing everything on the earth. But immediately when the angel blows the trumpet, the first thing that happens is there's this great cry in heaven that says, the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ. That's the ultimate fulfillment of the mystery of the Kingdom of God. And you know what happens shortly after that? The heavens are torn open, and on His white horse, with His name, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, He descends with all of His saints with Him, and He comes back to fight against the enemies of God, and to establish the Kingdom of God forever and ever. So, why is this important? Jesus Christ came and paid the price for my sins. He died on the cross, shed His blood, and paid the price for my sins. He was buried and He rose from the dead. And so I'm saved if I humble myself and repent and believe the Gospel. I'm saved by His grace through faith. And I'm kept by His grace, His sovereign grace, steadfast, unchanging love, faithful to the end. But the story is so much bigger than me getting saved. Jesus didn't just come and say, I mean, there's those instances like where he talks to the woman at the well, right? And reveals to that individual that he's the Messiah. There are those beautiful one on one conversations. But this teaching today shows me that all of this is so much bigger than me, and it's so much bigger than us. It's about God. It's about God bringing glory to his own name. by establishing a kingdom that nobody sees coming except those who are part of it. Now, now, what in life can drag you down? Who should you fear? What can possibly bother you? What can so trouble you and even threat of death itself? What can harm us? What can hurt us? Nothing! Nothing! The great King of all creation is building a kingdom under the noses of all of the hostile kingdoms of this world, and there's nothing they can do to stop it. And if you're in Christ, you're in that kingdom. You are under the shadow of His wings forevermore! And Jesus came, you see, you see, you see, we'll get to the content of the parable and the seeds and the plants and the soils and the fruit and all of that next week. Jesus explained it for us. So we'll take his explanation. But but look, look, look, look what we are and look what we have. And look, look, look. Jesus teaches the parable and says to you, it's been given to know. And we're sitting here today and we're blessed. We just so take it for granted. He's preaching that again. You know, it takes to listen. You are the most blessed if you believe and understand these things. You are the most blessed of all men and women in the history of the world. Take that and abide in that. Comfort yourself with that. Go and talk about that. Go into prayer and pray and give God praise and thanks for that. Devote yourself unreservedly to the one who surely will deliver you. The mystery of the kingdom of God. Given to us to know because of Jesus.