This morning is one of the most challenging portions of Scripture and most insightful to give us an idea of what we're dealing with in the kingdom mysteries. In Matthew 13, the initial hearers of the kingdom parables didn't understand them, and they knew Jesus very well. I think most Christians do not understand the parables of the kingdom mysteries because they think they are in the kingdom or experiencing the kingdom rule of Jesus Christ right now. And I am sad to say that that is not what we're experiencing right now. The promised Davidic kingdom of David's greater son is not our experience in this age today, it is not. Everyone wants to talk about if you're a believer you're in the kingdom and in a sense that's true for he has saved us, the father has saved us and delivered us from the dominion of darkness into the kingdom of his beloved son and we belong to the coming kingdom of Christ. The kingdom of heaven, we belong to it. But we do not see its expression today, we do not. It is not present in the organized system of religion. There is no vicar of Christ on earth today to represent him as a human sitting on a human throne. There is no such thing. There is a coming kingdom throne of David in Jerusalem over Israel, over, I said over all the nations. And when that kingdom is established, we'll know it, and we'll be there with him, and we'll be part of it. And it's described in Matthew, or sorry, Revelation chapters 19 and 20. And the way Jesus, the Prince of Peace, brings this kingdom is with overwhelming firepower, for the God of all peace will soon crush Satan under your feet, says Romans 16, 20. And he's going to bring this mighty deliverance of Israel, his people, against all those that are arrayed against them. against the Antichrist, the false prophet, and all those that follow them, empowered by Satan. And there is coming this time of the establishment of the promised, prophetically revealed kingdom, which removes war from the world. It removes the rebellion of mankind and the curse of nature. It's coming, but it is not here today. And what you read in Matthew 13 are mysteries unrevealed as of yet, until Jesus said it, not yet revealed things that were not said in the prophets and not part of the Old Testament paradigm for the kingdom, which would explain those eager and willing, you and I, who are looking for the coming kingdom of our Savior as to what in the world is going on in the time in which we live. And that's the kingdom mysteries. The parables of the kingdom of heaven are described in eight parables in Matthew 13 to help us understand Christendom, the time in which we live, in which the kingdom is what we call in abeyance. It was offered to the nation for whom it was designed. It was rejected by that nation and it is postponed in the time in which we live. And again, Revelation 19 is one of your most important insights to understand the coming of the kingdom. Revelation 19 is when Jesus comes to earth to deliver Israel and begin his kingdom. And Revelation 20 is the setting up of that thousand year reign, the first thousand years of the kingdom. And one of the most important insights to understand the sequencing of prophetic future is to recognize, beloved, that Revelation 19 comes before Revelation 20. The Lord Jesus comes to earth before the kingdom is established. We Do not build the kingdom with our self-righteousness, with our energy of the flesh, with our broken systems of religiosity that are more and more turning away from God and His word and more indulging in the flesh. As you see, we do not advance in wickedness and leaven of apostasy and say, we're building the kingdom. They may be serving a kingdom out there, but it isn't the kingdom of Christ. It's the dominion of darkness from which you've been delivered. The kingdom was rejected by those to whom it was offered, and this is the story in Matthew 13 of what to anticipate for the disciples in this interim phase that was not prior revealed, which the apostle Paul calls the mystery. And the mystery is this, that there would be one new man, one new person composed from both parties, Jew and Gentile, into one body called the body of Christ or the church. If your definition of the church is lacking, you might think of it as all believers of all time. So you might start with Abraham, which would be a mistake because there's no doubt that Adam and Eve were believers back in Genesis chapter four, chapters three and four. It isn't all believers of all time. The church didn't start with Adam. The church birthday is Pentecost, the Feast of Pentecost in the year AD 33. And if our chronology is off, then it's AD 30, but I think it's 33 AD was the year the Holy Spirit started building the church, uniting believers to the body of Christ. And that year was very, very soon after Jesus said the words of the kingdom parables in Matthew 13, upon being rejected by the leadership of Israel and accused of casting out demons in the power of Satan. You see, the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit would not be forgiven. And this generation to whom the kingdom was offered, only the lost sheep of the house of Israel, he told them, they had rejected the kingdom and so the kingdom was postponed. And so what will we see in this interim age? What is going to happen in this time of mystery where the body of Christ is being built, which was mystery unrevealed? Now, some say, no, no, we have a promise of Jew and Gentile salvation in the Old Testament prophets. the Gentile salvation was predicted. And I didn't say otherwise, it was predicted. And that is predictions of the millennial kingdom of Christ with Israel ruling with Jesus over all the nations in worship of Yahweh, in worship of Christ. That is what the Old Testament predicts. All the nations will worship Yahweh, that is predicted. But that is not what we're talking about when we say the church. The church is the one new body composed of Jew and Gentile, only believers, who are united to Christ by the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And in 1 Corinthians 12, 13, we have that definition of the church, those who are brought into union with Christ by partaking of one Holy Spirit, which is the wonder of the age we're in. So let's talk about this age. You have these eight parables that are the great, chapter 13, the third discourse of the Lord Jesus in Matthew chapter 13. We've worked through the parable of the sower and the parable of the wheat and the tares, or the wheat and the darnel. And we've also looked at the mustard and the leaven, but not in detail. Let me see if I can pull it up. Okay, Matthew 13, three, we'll start there. He spoke to them in many things in parables saying, Behold, the sower went forth to sow. And as he sowed, some fell beside the road. That's some of the seed, and the birds came and ate them up. But others fell on the rocky soil, and they did not have much soil. And immediately they sprang up, but because they did not have the depth of soil. But when the sun had risen, they were scorched, and because they had no root, they withered away. Others of the seed fell on thorns, and the thorns came up and choked them out. Still others fell upon the good soil and produced fruit, some a hundredfold, some 60, some 30. Did you notice it didn't say 30, 60, 100? It said 160, 30. I wonder if that's significant, that it decreases in productivity as a pasta seed grows. 60, some 30. He who has an ears to hear, let him hear. Everybody got it? You got the message? Good with what Jesus said? Well, Lord, you're talking to us in mysteries and parables. What, what, what gives? And so they had to ask him. The disciples came to Jesus and said, why are you in parables speaking to them? And he answered and said to them, to you, it's been given to know the mystery of the kingdom of heaven. but to those it has not been given. Those rejecting him, those accusing him of casting out demons and the power of Satan, those not believing in him. Those who are not going to receive heirship or inheritance in this kingdom, to those it's not been given. For whoever has, it will be given to him and he will be made to abound, but to whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. And what is the thing you have? The revelation of God that you believe. If you have it, Okay? You get more of it because you're trusting me. He gives you some, and you say, yes, Lord, and he gives you more. If you receive it and say no, even if he heals you from a disease, and so yeah, he must be a healer. But you reject him as your Messiah. You don't get more revelation. And there's a judgment coming from God on those who have rejected his revelation. That's what he's saying. God forbid anyone at Preston City Bible Church reject the word of God, and so fail to receive more revelation from God because you've not received what He's offered. There's a principle here for us. There are two ways to look at this message this morning. Well, He's gonna talk to us for the whole time. We have to sit there and listen, and then we can go eat. That's one way to approach it. And you feel like you're giving me some of your time. I really don't feel that way. I hope you understand. I think the word of God is a blessing that we can't even possibly evaluate. I feel like we are getting to benefit from what God is offering to us. So we shouldn't be like, well, I just have 20 minutes of time I can focus and then I can't do anything else. Fill up my cup, Lord. Oh, that's enough. I don't believe in that. I think that's ridiculous. I think it's ridiculous. Now, the blessing is the word. So let's ask him to give us more of that revelation. Whoever doesn't have, even what he has will be taken away from him. So verse 13, because of this and parables to them I speak, even though they're seeing, they do not see. And even though they're hearing, they do not hear and neither do they understand. And it is being fulfilled to them, or in their case, the prophet of Isaiah, which says, a hearing you will hear, and you will absolutely not be able to understand. We may plus the negative, plus the subjunctive. The strongest possible negation in Greek. You will absolutely not be able to understand, even though you hear. Seeing you will see, and you will absolutely not be able to perceive. And beloved, the secret to believing, or to understanding what God says is believing Him. The secret to understanding throughout Matthew 13 is believing Him. He is who He says He is. You can trust Him with what He says. And that's really our problem is that we don't believe so we don't understand. Verse 15 out of Isaiah 6, for it's dull, the heart of this people, with ears they can scarcely hear, with their eyes they've closed, otherwise they would see with their eyes, with their ears they would hear, with their heart they'd understand, they were to turn out would heal them. And this is exactly what God tells Isaiah in his ministry. So that's the challenge of the parables is that they are a judgment to the vast majority of those who might hear them, but they are revelation to those who are believing, who are receiving the kingdom. Most of those hearing do not get to be part of this kingdom. Those like you and I who disciple up and hear from Jesus, we are part of this coming kingdom. But happy are your eyes because they see, your ears because they hear, for truly I say to you that many of the prophets and righteous ones long to see what you see. It's revelation, it's God's self-disclosure. The prophets had all this special information from God that they had in visions. Jesus says, by listening to my words, the greatest of all the great prophets, the Lord Jesus, God, the Son, and the flesh of man himself, by hearing my words, you have better than the prophets have. That's what he's saying. He's advancing in this communication of mystery. They didn't have this before. to see what you see and they did not see, to hear what you hear and they did not hear. You see Isaiah, for example, had a prophecy in chapter two that there's coming a presence of Yahweh in his kingdom which from Mount Zion is going to teach all the nations to serve God. They're all gonna stream in to Jerusalem up at Mount Zion and learn from the Lord of his ways and they will no longer fight each other. And we can write it on the side of the UN building. that they will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks, and man will not learn war any longer. We can say that if we want on the UN building, but it's not talking about the efforts of man and his flesh and satanic deception and twisting of scripture. It's not talking about that. It's talking about when Jesus, Revelation 19 style, comes and establishes his kingdom. And when he does it, there's not gonna be war between the nations. And Isaiah the prophet received that. He had that message. And so he was given more than other people of his day had. We can read Isaiah too. But Jesus says, now you're getting more. You're getting more, and they long to see what it'll be like when I came. And there is the prophecies of the suffering of Messiah, but there's also the prophecies of the kingdom, the ruling of Messiah. How do these go together? First advent, he would suffer. Second advent, he will rule. And so Jesus is talking about the age, the interregnum, the period in between the offer of the kingdom and its rejection and the establishment of that kingdom. You therefore hear the parable of the sower. So now he explains it. All who hear the word of the kingdom and do not understand. Why don't they understand, beloved? Because they don't believe. All who hear the word of the kingdom and do not understand, the evil one comes and catches up what has been sown in their hearts. This is the one sown beside the road. Now, who is the evil one? The evil one, ha paneros, has nothing to do with overpriced fast food at a bakery, ha paneros. P-O-N-E-R-O-S is what Jesus calls, you say, when you pronounce the Lord's prayer, you say, deliver us from evil. He says the same phrase, ha paneros, the evil one. Deliver us from the evil one is the actual prayer in Matthew 6. He's talking about Satan, the enemy of your soul, the one who wants you to believe that your life is fine on your own without God's word. And his, I believe, his primary objective in your life and mine is to separate us from the word of God so that we won't trust God according to what he has said. Oh, you can make up an idea of who God is that occurs to you. You can mystically attempt to intuit God as you would like to have him. Satan's fine with that. But if you get hold of God's word, and it starts to get hold of you, this is directly opposed to his agenda for your life. And that's what he does here. He comes and snatches up the word, sewn in their hearts. Why don't they understand? Because they don't believe. They don't believe in the one speaking, and so they don't believe what he says. Beloved, if you don't understand something from God's word, believe the sender at least. Say, I don't know exactly how this fits, Lord, but I'm trusting you. There will be understanding. You will, in God's timing, receive understanding as you choose to trust him. In verse 20, but the one sown upon the rocky, and your Bible says soil, because that's what rocky is, a substantive adjective, as we said. The one sown by the rocky soil, this one who hears the word, immediately receives it with joy, but because he does not have roots in himself, but is temporary, but when tribulation or persecution happens on account of the word, immediately he falls away. And everybody, again, wants to say whether this guy's a believer or an unbeliever, believers, when you receive persecution, you better pray you have some deep roots. You better have roots now. This is a challenge to disciples. I wanna stand firm under tribulation or under persecution, but I wanna do it in the power that God gives me as the roots are sunk deep and I'm abiding in the vine. But the one sown into the thorns, this is the one who hears the word and the care of this age and love of wealth choke the word and he becomes unfruitful. And the one who upon good soil is sown, this one is he who hears the word and understands. This one indeed bears fruit and makes 100 fold, another 60, another 30. This is the parable of the sower. Another parable he said before them saying the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed a good seed in his field. So the first parable is you're gonna have in the interregnum period, you're going to have variable results from the same good message. The bad seed is not in the parable of the sower. It's all the seed that's the Word of God. It's the soils and how they take the seed. What is the preparation of the heart? What is the heart going to produce with God's Word? If you have a believing heart with God, you will bear fruit with God's Word. That's the design. And I didn't just summarize Romans, believers. I'm talking about Romans 6 and following. I'm talking about your life, which bearing fruit is in question. We are supposed to bear fruit. We are commanded to bear fruit. We are designed to bear fruit. Believers, it is not inevitable that you will bear fruit. Don't sit back on your salvation like that and waste the grace of God and his revelation, his word, and say, well, I'm already a believer, I must be bearing fruit. That's not how it works. You who trusted in Christ when you first believed need to continue to trust him in what he says and be doers of the word and not hearers only. The second parable is basically said twice in the beginning and the end of this cycle. He says the parable of the wheat and the tares and then the dragnet, the fish of the multiple kinds. You have in the inter period, in the period between the comings of Christ, you're going to see what we see today, which is believers and unbelievers growing up together. And what's very interesting is you see them in the same community associated saying they have Christ as their king. as their creator, as their Lord. We call the same Lord, we call Him Christ and His Lord, but some who call upon Him as Lord do not have Him as their Savior, and their weed and darnels, and that's the nature of the time in which we live. Just try to choke down any handful of sermons being delivered right now in Christendom, and you'll see what I mean about the tares choking out the weed. The king of heaven can be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. While the men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed darnels in the midst of the wheat. That's this weed that looks like wheat, as we said. And he went away. But when the wheat sprouted and bore grain, the darnels were revealed also. Then the servants came to the householder and said to him, Lord, did you not sow good seed in your field? I love that, when the subordinates come and say, did you do a good job with your planting? Did you not sow good seed? Now, the seed here is not the word, it's the people. It's the people within this phase that is in anticipation of the coming kingdom. Did you not sow good seed in your field? How does it then have darnels? But he said to them, an enemy has done this. So the servant said to him, then do you want us to go gather the darnels? And he said, no, for then when you gather the darnels, you might uproot them together with the wheat. Permit both to grow together until the harvest. See, you don't know who is really a believer. That's not our call. You can't look at whether someone really hustles. in evangelism, or church garage sales, or the candy bar drive, or whatever people think is good work for Jesus, you can't look at that work and say whether someone's a Christian. You're not called to look for that. That's not our job. We're supposed to bear the fruit that God wants to bear through us, and God is going to make the assessment. So, we're both together to grow together until the harvest, and in that time of the harvest, I'll say to the reapers, another parable he said before them saying the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his field, which is smaller on the one hand than all the seeds, but on the other hand, when it's grown, it's greater than the vegetable plants, and it becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches. Remember birds from the first parable. The birds are not thought of fondly in the parables. Another parable, he said, in the kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three 13 liter measures of flour until it was all leavened. All these Jesus said in parables to the crowds, and He did not speak to them without a parable. So you have the first four of Jesus' parables. He's already explained the sower. He's about to explain the wheat and the tares, or the wheat and the darnels, the believers and the false believers. And then he gave these two difficult summaries, mustard seed and leaven. I'll give you my interpretation of the mustard seed and leaven. Now, some have said, well, the mustard seed isn't the smallest seed, so I already know Jesus doesn't know agriculture. But that's not true. The mustard seed is not the pod. It's what you break open inside the pod, and then you look inside, and then there's like a dust, a very fine dust. And the individual grains of the very fine dust within the mustard seed pod are the seeds. That's how it is. You're almost handling cells at that point, and they are small. The idea of it growing and growing big and massive is the idea of those who profess and belong to what is this coming kingdom, those in favor, come Lord Jesus, those who are welcoming and receiving him as their savior, this is going to become this massive thing, not an externally visible thing. organization so much as just an aggregation, and it has become big. But what's very interesting is that the birds would nest in its branches, and I think we see that today, too. There are a lot of sheep among the wolves. There's a lot of Jesus in front, and then behind is nothing but wickedness. As Jesus called the Pharisees, he said, they're whitewashed tombs. You know, there's corruption inside, but it's pretty on the outside. And that's a lot of what you see in Christendom today. And it has been that way since Jesus spoke, but it is certainly that way today. So the first one with the mustard seed is the expansion of those claiming to belong to this coming kingdom, but not really belonging to it, and that it become a nesting place for the birds. I don't think, I think that's a reference to, again, the birds in the first parable. The second one, the leaven, leaven is never good in the Bible. Some have said, well, this is the one place it's good, and this just means that the gospel spreads throughout all the world. That's called post-millennialism. That's the idea that was put to bed by World War I, that as we embrace Jesus, and the structures get bigger and better, and you get the League of Nations, and we try to bring world peace, what's gonna happen is eventually we'll build a kingdom, and we'll have all the conditions for the kingdom, and then Jesus can come after we set it up, post-millennial return of Christ, and that's how we're gonna build it. That's the idea of the leaven is a good thing spreading through the whole world. But actually, the leaven is the corruption that it always is. Beware, he'll say in a couple chapters, beware the leaven of the Pharisees. And what you see in Christendom is the expansion, the permeation of corruption through the entire thing. That's the problem, and it's growing, and it's everywhere, and it's apostasy. I don't have a hopeful message for you today about the efforts of man to do God's work, except that the Holy Spirit lives in you. As you walk by the Spirit according to the Word of God, it'd be the rarest thing. You won't know many people around you that do this, but as you walk by the Spirit according to the Word of God, you will be bearing the fruit that God wants you to bear, and it won't be choked out with the cares of the world. So he didn't speak to them without a parable. So we have this expectation of growth to corruption. Let me see if my file updated. In Matthew 13, verse 35, it says, in order to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet of Isaiah, sorry, Psalm 78, saying, I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter things which have been concealed from the foundation of the world. Then after leaving the crowds, Jesus went into the house. That's interesting and thematic. This is a speech that happens to one group that hears the whole thing, but the larger group only hears the first four. Went into the house, and his disciples came to him saying, explain to us the parable of the darnels and the field. So he answered and said to them, the one who sows the good seed is the son of man. He's the sower that went forth to sow in chapter in the first parable. And now he's the one sowing the seed in the field, the son of man. This is what he's doing in the age in which we live. He is doing something. It isn't governmental, beloved. It isn't national structures or international governmental structures. It's not. It's not what sociology dreams of, of solving the problems of man through aggregations. It isn't these things. It's the word being sown, and then the people that receive the word, that they become sown in his field. He's working in the hearts of individuals. Let me prove it to you. The big command he gave us is to make disciples. The way you make disciples is one person at a time. One believer, one person goes from death into life, trusting Christ for the first time, one person at a time. You can't do this en masse. You can't say, well, our family of five, we all believe, bam, we're believers. Maybe you are, maybe you're not, but the only way that's true for that family of five is one, two, three, four, five people believed in Christ themselves. Understand what I'm saying? It's an individual heart decision to trust in Christ as your savior, one disciple at a time. It isn't national aggregations. It isn't the reconstructionist idea of we're gonna build America back by going to theocracy. No, nobody that I know that loves the word thinks that way. Nobody that I know that's watching the word closely believes we're supposed to insist on theocracy. Just because we say don't murder people that are innocent, before they're born or after doesn't mean we're advancing theocracy. We're just saying we've always had a country that said no murder. It's a no brainer. It's not theocracy. My point is, my point is Jesus is talking about his thing he's doing now. He's sowing the seed and there's multiple kinds of product that grows up because some of the seed isn't what he sowed. And the seed here in the sower is you and I'll show you. The one who sows the good seed is the son of man. Now the field is the world. Cosmos, everybody with me on that right here? K-O-S-M-O-S. That spells cosmos, and it's most often translated world. And sometimes that world refers to that which God loves, for God so loved the cosmos, the world, in John 3, 16. And sometimes it refers to something you're not supposed to love in 1 John 2. Do not love the world, the cosmos, or the things in the world, because then it refers to Satan's system of deception that has blanketed the entire world. And so you have to read it in its context. The field is the world, it means the place where we live. The cosmos, the field is the world, and the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom. Before the seed was the word, in the parable of the sower. Now, as he's sowing seed, this parable of wheat and tares, the good seed are the sons of the kingdom. And the Darnells are the sons of the evil one. And they're both growing up in the same field. I like to say that there are two kinds of people. Not people that haven't hurt you and people that have hurt you. That's not the categories, but we like to do that, don't we? And our self-righteousness and our little momentary lapses where we think we're God and the only thing that matters is me and how I feel about someone, we got two categories. People that have hurt me and people that haven't. And everybody that really knows you says, yet. People that haven't hurt you yet. And that's how we categorize people, but that's not how God does it. He doesn't do it by the effect on you. He does it with whether the gospel has affected them, whether they have received Christ or not. And it's two kinds of people. Now within believers, there are those walking by the Spirit and those that don't. It's true. I wish it wasn't. I wish it wasn't in your case, especially. Oh, but in my case, too. I wish it wasn't in my case at times. But there are basically two kinds, the sons of the kingdom and the sons of the evil one. And they are growing up in this field together. The enemy who sowed them is the devil. Now people will say, you can't make a parable. No, you can't make a parable. Walk on all fours. That's one way they might say it. Well, you can't push all the details of parables, and I take that under advisement. Don't read something in the Bible that isn't there, but Jesus does interpret the details of the parable and identify them as reference to being, to personal entities and agencies. The enemy who sowed these darnels, these tares, is the devil. And the harvest is the end of the aggies, is the end of the age. Harvest is the end of the age and the reapers are angels. Now this to me is my favorite part of the eschatology at the moment. He's talking about the end of the age. The end is eschaton, that's Greek eschaton. We're talking about the doctrine of the end is eschatology. He's talking about the end of the age, okay? The reapers are the ones that are gonna come bring this harvest. The reapers are angels. He sends his workers. This son of man, this one sowing the seed has these workers that are angels. They're his angels. They're the angels Jesus has at his disposal to go and send to this harvest. Oops. Thus it will be at the end of this age. And this is talking about the second death. It's talking about revelation where he describes the lake of fire, prepared for the Satan and his fallen angels and all those that follow them. It's not asking, beloved, whether you're bearing fruit or not in the parable of the tares and the wheat. It's asking whether you're a son of the kingdom or son of the evil one. There's two choices. There's two options there. Well, would you like to make it settled that you are one of the sons of the kingdom? Would you like to make it settled that you have passed from death and alive or from the domain of darkness to the kingdom of God's beloved son in Colossians chapter one? Would you like to be one who can say without any question, when he talks about wheat, that's me, and when he talks about terrors, that's what I was. Would you like to make that certain? Because you can right now. You can know that you have eternal life right now. It's in 1 John chapter five. Let's turn there real quick. 1 John five. Well, how would we do that? We don't know. Well, you go to the end of the Bible, and then you scroll back just a little bit. 1 John. The letters of John before the big book of Revelation of John. 1 John, we're gonna make this settled. If you believe the word of God, if you believe God's word is true, then you can know from what he says here that you have the life. I think it's very exciting. Maybe it's the first time you've thought this way. Maybe you think that, yes, I mean, I love the Lord, and that's your summary, and you don't have much of a summary. Or I went to church as a kid, but I don't know, I said a prayer when I was eight. I said a prayer at VBS, and they told me I was saved. One of you believed in Christ at VBS and have not looked back since. Maybe more of you than one, but I know one. All right, in 1 John chapter five, In verse, let's look at verse 10. The one who believes in the son of God has the testimony in himself and the one who does not believe God has made him a liar because he has not believed in the testimony that God has given concerning his son. What testimony? That Jesus is the son of God who died on the cross for your sins. You with me so far? Do you believe that or not? Now listen to the effects. The testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life and this life is in his son. Do you have that testimony in you that you have the son? Now listen, he who has the son has the life. He who does not have the son of God does not have the life. It's really, really, really simple. Do you have the son? The son of God, do you have him? Do you have the testimony concerning Him? Do you receive that He is your Savior who died for your sins and rose from the dead to offer you eternal life? Do you have the Son? I lost my place, I have to go find it again. My Bible wants to open to Isaiah. These things I've written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, this is verse 13. You who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. Do you know, beloved, that you have eternal life? He doesn't say that you may know that you may have it if you may be one of the ones. He says if you have the Son, then you know you have the life. I didn't say it, he said it, I just screamed it. Do you believe in Jesus as your savior? Have you received the life that we get only through him? It's really, really simple. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, Paul and Silas summarize, and you will be saved, you and your household. Have you trusted in Christ as your savior? Do you have the life? I didn't say, did you get baptized? I didn't say, did you ask five people, would they trust in Jesus with you? I didn't say, would you like to come to church for 30 visits? Give me 30 visits. I didn't say anything that you had to do. I said, did you trust in the one who did everything for you? Have you put your personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ? Then you know you're one of the wheat. and the Darnells are gonna get gathered together at the end of the age and burned in the fire. The Son of Man will send his angels and they will gather together from his kingdom all the stumbling blocks and those who poieo lawlessness. Those who poieo, to do, the basic Greek word for do, who do anomia, lawlessness. I thought you said all those that don't believe. I know, it's called positional truth. When you trust in Jesus as your savior, you receive God's righteousness declared to your account. And you're no longer those who do lawlessness, even if you do lawlessness, because your identity is now in Christ. And that's the absurdity of the Christian walking after the flesh, is that we're walking in lawlessness, doing lawlessness as those in position who are righteous and carrying the righteousness of Christ. That's how Romans applies here. He's talking about people who are still in their trespasses and sins, not those who have passed from death into life. Skandalon, a stumbling block, somebody that is a cause for others to trip over. You know, the Lord looks in his work and he wants it to go well and he loves you and he loves you so much that he sent his son to die for you and he wants you to know Jesus as your savior and there are people sent by the evil one to make you stumble along the path. You know who doesn't like that? The one that's gonna send his reapers out to go gather them all up and throw them into the fire. He's got a project, he's got an agenda. Are you part of that or are you an obstacle to that? It's an interesting application. But we cruise through verse 41, 42, and then they will throw them into the furnace of fire and there will be, let's all say it together, weeping and gnashing of teeth. Sign me up. So you had me worried about it when there was fire. But now, he says, now think about how regretful it's gonna be as you burn, weeping and gnashing of teeth. And he'll do it twice in the passage. Then the righteous will shine forth like the sun in the kingdom of their father. See, it's almost as though the fire melts away all the dross and then the righteous shine forth. There is an end, beloved ones, to wickedness. There's an end to the plague of our sin nature that we're struggling against every day. There's an end to Satan's world system calling to your sin nature, and there's an end to those who are willing to oppose God in the interest of Satan's agenda of rejecting the word and taking it away from others. The righteous are gonna shine forth in this glorious resurrection like the sun in the kingdom of their father. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. Now, notice that the kingdom descriptions, the Old Testament prophecies that we're looking for, like the glorious, righteous reign of Messiah, these are at the end of the age he's talking about. He's saying there is a period of this commingling of the wheat and tares, there's this period of sowing, there's this period of growing like the mustard seed or the infusion of wickedness like the leaven into this age that ends with a reaping, with a harvest. We're in the middle of the season of growing, of what he's talking about. This is how Jesus is prophesying, and I'll prove it to you if you'll give me just a second. Again, the kingdom of heaven's like a treasure that's been hidden in the field, which upon finding it, a man hid, and everybody puts the word again because it's already been hidden. It says it has been, had been hidden. It's in the perfect tense, and it had been hidden, and then upon finding it, the man krupto, he hid it. Well, it was already hidden, now it's been dug up, and now it's hidden again. That's why they put the word again, and it's not in the Greek, but it's in the idea. He hid it a second time. That's important, because you are not the person finding the treasure. The person finding the treasure, the man that hid it is Jesus, and he came and offered himself to his treasure, and they rejected him. And more than a dozen times in the Old Testament, Israel's called the treasure. I think that's the right identification. Jesus doesn't interpret this one, but I'll tell you my interpretation, that he is the one, he's always the man in the passage, and he has found a treasure and he offered it himself, he offered the treasure himself, and then there's this putting aside. He put it back. But he's not done because guess what happens at the end of the age? And from his joy he goes and everything which he has, he sells and purchases that field. And Jesus did die for the sins of Israel. He did die for his people. And their coming redemption will happen, I mean nationally, individually, it's everybody that trusts in him, but nationally they will, in belief, in faith, look on him whom they pierce and receive him and say, Hosanna. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. I take this to be, and I'm going fast, and I understand you might not have thought this through. You just read along, you think, well, I wanna get the kingdom, so it's the treasure, so I'm the person finding the treasure. Probably not, it's probably not, and there's lots of reasons why. But I wanna give you the whole picture, and then you can beat me up later with your text messages. Again, the kingdom of heaven's like a merchant man. Who do you think I think the merchant man is? The Anthropos. Well, the son of Anthropos, the son of man. Who is seeking beautiful pearls. Who upon finding one very valuable pearl, I know you wanna say pearl of great price, but what is that? It means a pearl that has great value. Went and sold all things, whatever he had, he gave himself and he bought it and he did buy this pearl with his blood. He did purchase it. Again, the kingdom of heaven's like a dragnet cast into the sea. What's a drag net? It's a large net hanging vertically with floats on the top, some would say, and weights on the bottom so it hangs vertically. And the idea was that they would suspend it between two boats and they would drag. They would row together or let the wind pull together so that they move and whatever the net pulls in, indiscriminately, it hauls in. And this is just like the wheat and the tares. You get a harvest of good and bad fish. from every kind gathering, in which when it's filled, they brought it upon the beach. They sat down and gathered the good ones into containers, but the bad ones they threw out, so it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come forth, they will take away the evil ones from the midst of the righteous, and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be, let's all say together, weeping and gnashing of teeth. Jesus said to them, do you understand these things? Are you with the disciples? Can you say what they said? I'm not so sure that they got it, because what happens later, do you not understand, he still has to ask them, do you understand these things? They said to him, nai kuri, yes, Lord, we understand. Yes, Lord, we understand. Now, for that reason, that they believe, so that they understand what he's saying, He is going to say, you who are coming from the old revelation are now receiving this new revelation. I'll compare you to a scribe. who is a disciple of the kingdom. So, therefore, he said to them, dia tuta, for this reason, you have to connect verse 52 to verse 51. Do you understand these things? Yes, we understand. So then I'll tell you this, therefore, for this reason, every scribe who has become a disciple in the kingdom of heaven, who has mate tuo, who has discipled up in the kingdom of heaven, is like a householder man, So now, the first time we've had a man, an anthropos, that is not Jesus, is those that are following him, his disciples. who brings out from his treasure old things and new. Why is the scribe like this? Because the old revelation was the promise of the kingdom and all that they were expecting that Jesus didn't deliver. He didn't deliver the political ramifications. We are told in Daniel two, and it's very clearly interpreted that there is coming one, the son of man is gonna be like a big rock. cut without hands, that is going to come down and smash all the kingdoms of the earth and grind them to powder. All these Gentile nations running roughshod over Israel are gonna be ground to powder and blown away. And then that rock, this is Daniel 2, that rock is going to expand and become a mountain that fills the entire earth. And that is the kingdom that's promised of Messiah. And we are not seeing that happen right now. That's the old, that's the old prophecy that we're still looking forward to. This is the new information. The scribe that brings out good things from his treasure, old and new, is somebody that understands God's revelation from before that hasn't been fulfilled, and then he adds more revelation, and now you have the whole picture that we're not today in the Davidic kingdom. He's not sitting on David's throne in heaven. He's sitting on his father's throne in heaven in ascension glory, and what's he doing right now? Is he ruling the nations with a rod of iron? Is he crushing the wickedness of Washington, D.C. with his righteous indignation? No, and we pray for that. You know, break it. Break the wickedness. We're Habakkuk on the roof saying, how long, O Lord, do we have to watch wickedness develop and wickedness runs our country? And we see all the political processes worse and worse and in decline and greater decline. We say, well, If we can only get good elected officials, then somebody says, what about the electorate? It's the people voting for them. And the people they were voting for look like the people voting for them. And we're, oh no, it's a spiritual problem. There's nothing but a spiritual solution. And we don't see Jesus ruling as promise. And he isn't Psalm 2 breaking the nations like earthenware. He's not. we still see the dark Lord ruling the nations, just like he said in Luke chapter four. He told Jesus, bow down to me and I'll give you all these nations. They're all in my hand, I can give them to whoever I want. He's still deceiving the nations. I'm ready, let's go Lord, break his back, let's see this go. And that's what the Old Testament prophesies, and that's what the New Testament prophesies, but it gives you more information now, that we're in this period still anticipating the kingdom that has been postponed. And it's not plan B, this is what God was gonna do all along, he just didn't reveal all that we're experiencing now. It's a mystery, the time in which we live. It wasn't revealed before, and here we are. And we wanna skip to the end and say, well, let's go be about the kingdom. And we think we're what? You're gonna rule? You're gonna rule with the 10 commandments over Satan's dominion? We're gonna claim this territory for Jesus and reconstruct. You're not. You're not. This country, if it's still around when it happens, is going to join a one world alliance that is worshiping Satan's man they call the Antichrist. They're gonna receive him as the Messiah and all the nations are gonna bend the knee to him. And they're gonna do it because he's gonna bring peace and security. and he's the first seal in Revelation 6. Conqueror goes forth to conquer. And that's coming, and I hate that. I love my country. But that's what all the nations of the earth are gonna do. Oh, not America, the United States will never do that. Just look at the rainbows. Just look at the way we are nationally and internationally promoting wickedness, thumbing our nose at God, taking his sign, he says, I'll hang my bow in the clouds, and then we'll go use that and say, we embrace, rejoice, and promote abomination before God, and try to force it on children. And if you say that, you're a Nazi. If you tell the truth, and you love him, you're a Nazi. because words don't have meaning anymore. There's no righteousness. The only righteousness is let me do whatever I want sexually. So it's not righteousness. Just one illustration I'm pointing out. It's very obvious to all of us. No, you're not bringing the kingdom. We're not experiencing the kingdom. The kingdom hasn't been growing and expanding. That has been prophesied that Jesus will rule from Jerusalem. That is not the age. The age we're in is in anticipation of this coming kingdom. And so we have our instructions. We wanna be clear and receive the old and the new. We don't reinterpret the Old Testament by the new. Thank you for sticking with me. The first parable was the sower. Fruitfulness from the response to the word. And it nails all of us. And don't say, well since I'm a Christian, I must be bearing fruit. What you wanna say is, I am a Christian and am I bearing fruit? Okay? Because I think a lot of Christians don't. And I think you may be saved, but not stand up under persecution. And I think you may be saved, and you might still get choked out with your faith because of the concerns of money and riches and the affairs of the world. The sower. The second parable, wheat and darnels, it's a mixture unsorted. It's an unsorted mixture until the end of the age when it gets sorted. And think about that, God, you're gonna sort it. Thank you, thank you. He's gonna sort it out, I don't have to sort it out. Isn't that great? Rest. He knows this is happening. Lord, don't you know? He knows. The mustard seed, from the smallest beginning, it's a massive, and then the home for the birds. From the smallest beginning, it's a miracle that the word of Christ has gone around the world the way it has. Fourth, the leaven is an increasing and encroaching apostasy that eventually takes over the entire lump. Will the Son of Man find faith when he comes back? The fifth is the hidden treasure, and I believe that is a parable of Jesus' redemption of national Israel. His redemption of national Israel, which was through the cross work that he did at Calvary. And then the costly pearl is, I believe, Christ's redemption of the church, but they're both him purchasing the components that will be in this coming kingdom. The kingdom of heaven, the way this connects to the kingdom is that the church, is the bride of Christ ruling with him over Israel, over the nations in this coming kingdom. And then the dragnet is the mixture unsorted until the end of the age. It's the same thing we had in number two, the wheat and the darnells. Just so you remember, it's gonna be good fish and bad. It's how it's gonna be until we're done dealing with this weedy field and this messy hall of fish. The eighth was arguably a parable, was that the scribe becomes a disciple, is gonna have both the old prophecies of God's coming kingdom, and then throw together with this new prophecy of the anticipation, this time of anticipation of the coming kingdom we call the church age. And we're gonna see them together, and we do understand we are part of this kingdom, we belong to it, we're the heirs of it, but we're not enjoying it now. Don't kill the hopes. that someone has when they read Isaiah 12. Don't kill those hopes by saying, isn't it nice we're here? It's in the kingdom. Oh, this kingdom is not, my kingdom is in this world, Jesus said. So that means that it's a spiritual kingdom and it has nothing to do with the political realities we live in. No, it is very political and it is coming and we're not in it now. So what do you take away from this? If you're one of those darn elves, you can make the switch right now. You need to trust in Christ as your savior. If you are a believer, then you need to disciple up because you are growing into the rulership capacity God has marked out for you in his coming kingdom. And not only are you growing into it, you're equipping others and building others into that capacity. And that's our destiny. We are focused on the kingdom, which is still our future. With our heads bowed and our eyes closed, we thank you, Father, for eternal life and the challenge of the gospel, that Jesus died for our sins and rose from the dead, and that we can become sons, heirs of the kingdom. through simple childlike faith in the King and the Lord Jesus Christ, who died for our sins and rose from the dead. And we thank you for this truth and for the challenge it poses to our faith. And I pray for those in the hearing of my voice today, Father, they would consider the claims of Jesus Christ and trust in Him. And now, Father, you've given us the mission for the time in which we live, which is to advance the agenda that you have eternally for your kingdom. That as we grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, we become part of your work, and the outcome of that work is very much what we'll see in the coming of our Savior. And we wanna be ready for that, Father. Help us live in anticipation of that and not get caught up in the affairs of this world unnecessarily. We pray in Jesus' name, we all said, amen.