Today we continue in our systematic exposition of God's word. And the last time I preached, you will recall that we expounded on the parable of the sower. Today we come to the next section, the section which is in fact wedged in, in Matthew chapter 13, into the parable of the sower. So, Matthew chapter 13, verses 10 to 17, the passage that we did not expound last time. Matthew chapter 13, verses 10 to 17. Now in this passage there are some very important things that the Lord wants to say to us. There are some very important questions and some important problems that we have to deal with. Which if we fail to deal with correctly, we are going to be very much on the wrong track in understanding God's word.
The parallel passages to this are in Mark chapter 4 and Luke chapter 8. But we shall not look at those because those are very much shorter than the Matthew passage, which is much longer and more full in its context. I shall read to you this passage, and I'd like you to bear in mind a number of questions as we read these.
The first question we want to ask is the question that comes up in this very passage. Why did the Lord Jesus teach in parables? Was it in order to conceal the truth? That is, to conceal the message of salvation to man? Or was it to reveal the message? That is the crucial point. What is the purpose of the parable? Is it to hide the message of salvation, or is it to reveal the message of salvation? If it hides the message to some, is that because that is God's intention to hide it? That is the kind of question we have to ask. Because this reveals and deals with the wider question: what is God's purpose towards us? Does he want to save us, or does he not want to save us? Now, if the purpose of a parable is to conceal salvation, and presumably the answer is that he does not want to save us — that seems a strange reply, but we shall see that in certain theologies that is in fact a reply. The theology of a Calvinistic type is in fact something of this sort. That it is designed to conceal rather than reveal. It is judgment rather than grace. We shall look at this in more detail. But these are the kind of questions I would like you to bear in mind as we go along. Why did the Lord Jesus speak to us in parables? Is salvation for everyone or not for everyone? That is the kind of question that we need to ask.
Now, as we bear these questions in mind, we read on. Matthew chapter 13, verse 10. "Then the disciples came and said to him" — that is, to Jesus — "Why do you speak to them in parables?" That is, why do you speak to the crowd, the multitude, in parables? "And he answered them, 'To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.'" In regard to this sentence of the Lord Jesus, I want you to ask this question: Is this a statement of intention, or is this a statement of fact? I repeat the question. Is this a statement of intention, or is this a statement of fact? There is a crucial difference between this. Is it God's intention not to give the kingdom to some, and to give the kingdom to others? Which means, of course, the predestinarian teaching that some are to be saved, some are not to be saved. Or is it simply a statement of fact, not of intention? That in fact the kingdom of God has been given to you because you have received it. And in fact the kingdom of God has not been given to them because they have not received it. Which is the right answer? Very important. These are the kind of questions we must bear in mind.
To expound the word of God requires clear-minded logic, clear thinking, as well as accurate exposition. Any error, anywhere along the line, is going to have the most serious consequences. More serious than in any kind of study in this world you could pursue. An engineer who makes a structural design mistake will result in a bridge collapsing, something falling down, some lives being lost. But a teacher who makes a mistake may cost others their eternal well-being. An awesome responsibility that has never ceased to frighten me. But I proceed under the grace of God.
Verse 12: "For to him who has will more be given, and he will have abundance. But from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away. This is why I speak to them in parables." Why did he speak in parables? "This is why." What is "why"? Think about it. "This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing, they do not see, and hearing, they do not hear, nor do they understand. With them indeed is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah which says: 'You shall indeed hear, but never understand, and you shall indeed see, but never perceive. For this people's heart'" — which people's heart? In the first place, of course, the people of Israel. The words were being addressed by Isaiah to the nation of Israel. "For this people's heart has grown dull, and their ears are heavy of hearing, and their eyes they have closed." Who have closed? They have closed. "Lest they should perceive with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn to me to heal them." "But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. Truly I say to you, many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it."
Now here you can clearly see the passage is not easy to understand. But precisely because it's not easy to understand, it contains very great truth in it. Great truth of great importance. Now here, as I said, we must bear in mind the question: why did the Lord Jesus preach in parables? He consistently, when he opened his mouth to the crowds, he spoke in parables. I return to this question: Was it in order to hide salvation from the people, or was it in order to reveal salvation? What is your answer to this question?
If you say it was designed to reveal the truth to them, then you have taken a position which is contrary to predestination and to Calvinism. If you say it is in order to conceal the truth from them, then you have taken the position which is represented by the predestination teaching. That God, in fact, spoke forth the word in such a way that it was a word not of salvation, but in fact of judgment. So that they could not see, could not understand. Salvation was there, but they could not perceive it. Only to those who were given the eyes to perceive, and given the ears to hear — only these, to whom God gave the capacity to understand, would understand. The others deliberately blinded.
Well, what's the evidence for this? The evidence for this is John chapter 12, verse 40. Put for us exceedingly plain. John chapter 12, verse 40. What does John chapter 12, verse 40 say? Quoting now from Isaiah with a different translation, we read this. Starting from verse 39: "Therefore they could not believe, for Isaiah again said, 'He' — meaning God — 'has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, lest they should see with their eyes and perceive with their hearts and turn for me to heal them.'" God has blinded their eyes so that they shall not see. God has hardened their hearts so that they shall not perceive, so that they may not turn, so that they may not be healed.
In this teaching, the predestinarians rejoice. I do not rejoice. I do not glory in this teaching, because I am about to refute it. Now, if this be so, if this is correct, that God does not want you to be saved, then, my brothers and sisters, I shall close my Bible right here, and walk away from the pulpit, for I have no more message to preach. If Calvin be right, I have no message to preach. I don't know why he preached. I don't know why I should preach. For God does not want those to turn. Because if there are non-Christians here — I don't know — what is the purpose of preaching to them, seeing that the preaching is designed to conceal rather than to reveal, at least to those who perish?
But before we rush into such conclusions, I praise God that the word of God is not to be understood quite so superficially. And this is what I aim to expound. Let us proceed then, and look at this passage again so that we come to the right conclusion. And I want to show you first the exposition of this, and then I want to show you what is the position. And I'm sorry that I will have to take occasion to refer to people like Calvin and to predestination. And I want to say, as I say this, that Calvin has said an awful lot that is exceedingly good. I am no enemy of Calvin's. And that much of what he has said is of great value. But on this point, on this one point, I differ. And I differ with him publicly, and with no apology. I want to show you that his exegesis is wrong, his theological thinking is wrong. And I want to show you why. And I hope that you will be able to follow me, and that the process is not too difficult for you to understand.
As I said to you before, if Calvin is right, I have no reason whatsoever to stand here and preach. Since the preacher is not designed to reveal, but to conceal. For if Jesus was to conceal the truth to the crowds and to the multitudes, what should I be doing? Should I not follow and do the same? Why would I ever go forth and preach the gospel to the multitudes? Never. For God is concerned that their eyes should be blinded. That is what God means. Now, I say this with great regret, because it is to my mind almost inconceivable that such an exegesis should be deduced and seriously preached today. Yet this is exactly what is done. To some people, doctrine is more important than people. To some people, religion is more important than people. This kind of religion, I don't wish to have any part of. And I make no apology for it.
If that is religion, that can glory in a God that condemns people to hell, that glories in a God that blinds the people, that glories in a God that deafens their ears and hardens their hearts — that kind of religion, I want to have no part of. I don't want to be a minister of that sort of religion. But I thank God that that is not the God of the Bible. Never take the scripture out of context. But that is exactly what so many have done.
Calvin, in his work on this subject called "Eternal Predestination of God," of course makes great use of this particular passage, and in fact I refreshed my mind on it just yesterday when I read again what he had to say in this section. And I couldn't agree on anything of what he had to say except one point where he agrees that these people, their hearts were hardened because they themselves sinned. But this is not correct. He did not say quite so. He says he agrees that they sinned first, but God chose to harden their hearts. In fact, the way I presented it was even much too soft for what Calvin wanted to say.
Now let us turn to the word of God and see what God says. What does he actually say here? Well, he says this. First, we will turn immediately to the passage of the quotation from scripture which is also what is quoted in John chapter 12, verse 14, and in Matthew 13 begins at verse 14. "With them indeed is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah which says: 'You shall indeed hear, but never understand.'" Now if you look at this passage you will see how different this passage is from John 12, which is supposed to be also a quotation of Isaiah chapter 6, verses 9 and 10. And you will wonder why. Why both quote Isaiah 6 but quote it differently?
The answer is this. In Matthew chapter 13, verse 14, the passage in front of us, the quotation follows word for word the Greek Old Testament, not the Hebrew Old Testament. It follows the Septuagint word for word with no change in tense, no change in wording. It's an exact quotation from the Greek Old Testament. This means that you will see that the Greek Old Testament translators, fearing precisely the kind of misunderstanding that some people untrained in theology would make, had changed, had softened the force that we see in the Hebrew. You will notice here that there is no ascription to God of hardening anyone's heart or blinding anyone's eyes. You will read this passage and find nothing to that effect whatever.
Let's read it again. Here, what we read in the Greek Old Testament and quoted in Matthew in full is simply this: "You shall indeed hear" — a statement of fact. "You will hear but you will not understand. You will see but you will not perceive." That is, you will look and you will see. Verse 15: the explanation for this reason that they will look and not see, listen and not hear, is because this people's heart has grown dull, and their ears are heavy — all statements of fact. God didn't do any of these things. They simply are statements of fact. And their eyes they have closed. The responsibility is put fully and squarely upon the people of Israel for closing their eyes to God's truth. No ascription whatsoever to God. Have you noticed that? Right.
Now let us turn to Isaiah and see what Isaiah actually says. And in the English translation here it will follow the Hebrew, not the Greek. So we have an idea what the Hebrew is saying. In Isaiah chapter 6 and verse 9, what do we read? Here we read in chapter 6 and verse 9 of Isaiah: "And he said" — that is, God said, said to whom? He said to Isaiah — "Go and say to this people: 'Hear and hear, but do not understand; see and see, but do not perceive.'" So this is a statement of fact? A statement of intention? What is it? Verse 10: Now we see the difference in the Hebrew. "Make the heart of this people fat, and their ears heavy, and shut their eyes, lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed."
Now you can see where John chapter 12, verse 14 comes from. It is quoting from the Hebrew Old Testament. Here Isaiah is told, as God's servant and God's instrument, to go and make the heart of this people fat. He is told to go and make their ears heavy and shut their eyes. So John 12 is really saying that God is doing this through Isaiah. The Calvinists are right — partially so. But when you understand why, then the whole picture changes.
Then we put the question very simply to you now. Isaiah, the great prophet of God, has had a vision of God, and God is going to send him forth. And now he sends Isaiah forth and says, "Go and speak to this people. Make their heart fat" — that is, dull, slow of spiritual understanding. "Go and shut their eyes and see that their ears do not hear." Why? Because you read the first five chapters and you'll know why. Because they had already shut their eyes. That is the background to the Greek translation. They shut their eyes. That is the first point.
The second point is simply this, and it's so wonderful once you understand it. Isaiah is sent out to preach the gospel. What is often called the gospel of Isaiah. Because hardly in any other book do you see so fully portrayed the coming of Christ, the coming of the Messiah. That is why Isaiah is often spoken of as the gospel of Isaiah. He is sent forth to preach the gospel to Israel. Now let me ask you this question. Isaiah is here commanded to go forth and make the heart of this people heavy. How did he do it? How? If God gave to me the command, "Go and make the heart of this people heavy. Shut their eyes. Close their ears." How do I go about it? If God gave you the instruction — and notice the instruction — "Go out there, preach the gospel, but shut the eyes of the people. Close their ears. Make their hearts heavy." I ask you, how do you do it? How?
Now that is the key to a correct exposition. The answer is right before us in Isaiah. Well, how did Isaiah do it? Did he obey God's command? Certainly. So how did he do it? Praise God, it is so wonderful. Well, what's your answer? If this were a Bible study, I would like to hear your answer. How do you do it? How do you go out and shut the hearts of the people? You think about it. If you had this job to do today, I ask you how you're going to do it. If I have been given this job to do, just as Isaiah has been given this job, how am I going to do it? How am I going to shut your heart? Shall I come to you and give you a punch in the chest hoping that you'll close the valve there? Shall I suddenly put my hands around your eyes so that you can't see? Shall I put my fingers in your ears and stop your ears so while I'm preaching, I hold your ears there and I'm preaching the gospel, you can't hear it, right? And shut your ears. Say, ridiculous. Of course it's ridiculous.
Well then how am I going to do it? Think, brothers and sisters, before you come to this kind of conclusion such as that God wants everybody to perish, or that most of them he wants them to perish and selects only a small group that he wants to save, the others he wants to let them perish. What kind of teaching is this? How do you shut people's ears? How do you blind their eyes? Just how?
Look what Isaiah did. What did he do? Quite simply, he went and proclaimed the truth. That's what he did. What else did he do? How else do you do this work? Now you say, "Now I've lost you." Follow me a moment and you'll understand. It's not that difficult to understand. You see, the truth of God will do one of two things in every person's life. The truth will either open your eyes or it will blind your eyes. The truth of God will either open your ears or it will shut your ears. The truth of God will either make you alive or it will kill you. That's what the answer is. The truth does it all. When I preach the truth of God, some people are going to shut their ears and some people are going to open their heart. When I preach the message of Christ, some people are going to live, some people are going to die. Every preacher knows that. In other words, every preacher should understand this perfectly.
Now, when I preach to a people who are like the Israelites were — a stiff-necked and rebellious nation — you don't have to do anything to shut their eyes. They will resist the truth. Just as God said to Ezekiel, when you preach that word, they will reject you. But I will give you a forehead like adamant. You will just go out there and preach.
He was not willing that any should perish. That is a truth denied by Calvin, unfortunately. That's why I emphasize that. Think about it. For according to Calvin, God was most willing that the majority should perish. There is no other way to understand. I have heard such teaching. I have stated so before and I say so again.
You see, God is simply not willing. Even though he knew the people did not want to hear his word, yet he sent one servant and another servant and another servant. That is the whole message of the Lord Jesus in the parable of the vineyard, the parable of the tenants. They killed one and he sent another one. Why? They killed the first one, they killed the next one. Because he was not willing that they should perish. He sent another one. They killed this one, he sent another one. They killed this one, he sent another one. He sent last of all his son too. "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that killed the prophets! How often would I have gathered you under my wings — but you would not! Not 'I would not' — you would not! I was not willing that you should perish. I wanted to gather you under my wings, but you did not want it." That is the teaching that says that God doesn't want it.
Now, once we understand this, we understand by what means God can blind the people. How? Simply by speaking the truth. That's all you have to do. You see now how John 12:40 sounds entirely different when you understand this principle of God's word. The light can give you sight or it can blind you. The light blinds Saul before it gave him sight. You see, it's not just darkness that blinds. Light can blind too. This is the point you have to understand.
Oh, it is so important to grasp the truth. Indeed, God sent Isaiah forth to make the heart of this people heavy. How? By preaching the truth. Why? Because the people will not receive it. And God knew they wouldn't receive it. So since he knew that they wouldn't receive it, why preach the gospel? Because he was not willing that any should perish. That's the whole point. In the Old Testament, this beautiful word: "How I have stretched out my hands all day long. All day long I have stretched out my hands to a stiff-necked and rebellious people." Well, the answer is, why bother to stretch out your hands since they are stiff-necked people? Because you are not willing that they should perish, brothers and sisters. Can you understand that? He is not willing. He doesn't want you to perish.
I have said before and I say again, nobody will go into hell except by pushing past the nail-pierced hands of Jesus. He stands at the gates of hell and blocks them with his nail-pierced hands and says, "I beg you not to go through." Nobody will go into hell except he push past the hands of Jesus and go there. That's how you're going to get to hell. He is not willing that any should perish.
And now you can see how dangerous is the superficial, inaccurate exposition of the word that takes a passage like John 12 and says, "Aha, aha, there you see, God wants you to perish because God blinded your eyes." Yes, but how? Before you jump to such conclusions. It is the truth that blinds. He speaks the truth. We Chinese know very well what it means. We know how hard it is to swallow the truth. And that is why so many people reject the truth. We know these words very well: good words, truthful words are hard to hear. How many times have I quoted that to you? Good medicine is bitter to your taste. We don't like the truth. We may know it, too, but we don't like it. That's why I have urged on you as Christians always to love the truth, whatever the consequences of it. Take it through. Love the truth and love it to the end.
God is — the truth of the matter is we can establish firmly and without question in scripture, on a solid scriptural basis, that God is not willing that any should perish. And he says so in so many words in 2 Peter 3:9. Not invented by the poet. And anyone who dares to say that God wills people to perish, indeed that the majority should perish, preaches an unheard-of heresy. And so consider this carefully.
But what gives to Calvinism its plausibility? And here I want to stop for a moment. Calvinism derives its plausibility on this matter of predestination simply by quoting verses like John 12:14 to people who are not equipped to understand it. It gives a plausible-sounding situation. It looks on the face of it — as every lawyer knows, that a statement may look and sound like something on the face of it at first sight, until you examine it and it turns out to be quite the opposite of what it appears to be. In this sense everyone should understand the principle of reading, that things do not always in scripture appear to be what they seem to be until you understand the principle.
Secondly, what gives to Calvinism in its predestinarian aspect — the doctrine — the plausibility to this doctrine is this: they concentrate on one point and one point only, namely the will of God. Now to understand, to analyze predestination teaching in Calvin, you have to understand only this one thing. His whole focus is focused on the will of God. Now that sounds good because the Bible has a lot to say about the will of God, until you realize two things about this teaching of will of God which is not scriptural.
First, it is an emphasis on the will of God through the neglect of both his holiness and his love. In other words, in this predestination teaching, neither God's holiness nor God's love count for anything. They have all gone by the board. They are sacrificed to a doctrine of the will of God. I have no time to expound in detail what it means. What it does mean is simply this: that God saves a person or does not save a person has nothing to do with either his love or his holiness. It is entirely a matter of his will. "I choose to save you whether you are a sinner or not a sinner. You may be a dreadful sinner but God chooses to save you. He chooses to do so simply by his will. Or you may be a very good person but God simply does not choose to save you." It's his will that matters. All that matters. That is Calvinism in its essence. It has nothing to do either much with his holiness. They don't deny his holiness but there's not much use made of it. Nor his love. In that matter, how can you speak of a God who loves? Because really, a God willing to let the majority perish — the sovereignty of God that they talk about so much is simply really the sovereignty of his will. That's what they mean. He does whatever he likes to do. There is no question of right or wrong. A thing is right or wrong because God wants to do it. There is no other standard of right or wrong. There is no question even that it could be measured in terms of the might of his holiness or his love. Nothing. That sovereign will of God is over everything else and covers everything else. Everything else goes. You call that sovereignty of God? That is one thing. The Bible doctrine of sovereignty of God is another matter.
Secondly, because God's will is sovereign, it is also incomprehensible. That's the way they cover any possibility of questioning their doctrine. It is incomprehensible. Calvin loves to speak about it as being incomprehensible. So every time you question him, he simply says it's incomprehensible. It's quite safe. If he says that, of course there's no way to comprehend it. You cannot attack something which is constantly said to be incomprehensible. "Who are you? You are just a man." And they like to quote those words, "Who are thou, O man?" He is God, you are man. Don't you ask any questions. This means, of course, we might as well not think at all. We need not reason, we need not think, because it's utterly incomprehensible. We ask no questions about the will of God. We can read the Bible, we can think about the Bible, but when it comes to the will of God, don't ask any questions, because it is incomprehensible. It's already stated in advance.
What is the danger of this kind of doctrine? The danger of this doctrine is manifold. And I speak out more forthrightly than perhaps any other preacher, because I'm aware of this frightful danger. The danger is that God becomes utterly unintelligible. And how do you love a God who behaves in no way that you can understand? There is no way you can understand his action, because he's incomprehensible. His will is incomprehensible. And therefore, you have to worship him blindly, not because he's love, not because of holiness, but because he's supreme will. And you as a creature simply bow down to him. That's all there is to it. He dictates and you will follow. You worship him because his will is supreme. He commands and it will be so. I wonder if it is possible really to love God — really, I mean love, not just fear or adore, but love — with such kind of a doctrine.
Secondly, the second consequence of this is that it utterly removes human responsibility. You really cease to be responsible for your actions because the only thing that matters is God's will. What you do or don't do really doesn't matter. Nothing really matters except the will of God. In other words, it develops a so-called Christianized
# The Purpose of the Parables from the Salvation Viewpoint (Part 2)
What then is the scriptural teaching? What is the error? The error is simply this. Nowhere in the scripture is God's will ever made to become something which is unintelligible in the sense that there is no rhyme or reason to it. Nowhere do I see that. Everywhere in the Bible you see that God's love and God's holiness govern the will. Now this is true both in human beings and it is true in the Bible. Your will does not work for no particular reason. It is governed by your character. Your character governs the function of your will, does it not? You do a certain thing — that's why I often can predict what a certain person will do or decide. And you can predict what a certain person will do or decide because you know his character well enough. You will know how his will will function. It is simply not true to say that will functions independent of character. It is simply not true either of God, as we see in scripture, or of man. Yet that's what this kind of doctrine is supposed to be. So therefore we find in the scripture that God's love and God's holiness are what govern the functioning of his will.
Now in this way I can understand God — understand in part. I cannot understand him perfectly. But I can understand him in good measure. And I can respond to his love. I can respond to his holiness. But I cannot respond to a will that is arbitrary, that is unpredictable, and that has no particular rhyme or reason that I can grasp. How do you respond? The answer to that thinking would be that you don't respond. God simply does all the responding in you. You are simply more or less a spiritual marionette — a puppet pulled on a string.
Now I want to say again: let's return to the Bible. Let's now ask the question in the light of all this discussion — some of it I know will be over your head, it is too theological and too philosophical. But I have to speak in such a way that for those who are equipped to handle it, they can get something too. Because all preaching today can often be so superficial that those who want to think and who want to work at it are really given nothing to think about, nothing to work at. So if some of it has gone over your head, then I apologize for this. But for the others I know they need to understand.
Now I hope we are in a position to understand the answer to our question. When the Lord Jesus spoke in parables, was it in order to conceal the truth, or was it to reveal? What would your answer be now? I hope you are in a better position to answer this question. Was it that the Lord Jesus preached to the crowd with a deliberate intention that they should not understand? Can you imagine that situation? Would this not reduce the whole of Jesus' preaching to an exercise in the ridiculous, if one might say so with some degree of reverence? What is the point of going out to preach at all, if you don't want the people to understand?
Imagine if I had to preach to you with the purpose, with the intention, that you will not understand. Can you imagine that? Will we attribute to God what we ourselves would not do? That is why I said, if I had to preach with a purpose, with the intention that you should not understand, then would it not be more sane and more sensible and more wise that I don't preach at all, that I close my Bible and walk out? No, I preach with the intention that you should understand.
But let's ask a little question. What is a parable? What is an illustration? Well, a parable is nothing more or less than an illustration. That's all it is, isn't it? It is a well-chosen illustration which packs the divine truth into the pictures of that illustration. Now let's ask the question: what is an illustration for? Is an illustration in order to conceal what you want to say, or is an illustration designed to reveal what you want to say? Well, put in this way, the answer of course is very plain. You use an illustration to help a person to understand, not in order to stop them from understanding. That's plain, isn't it? Now when the Lord Jesus then preaches in parables, he is simply preaching with illustration, that's all. And the illustration is to help you to understand. Or to use the words that the Lord Jesus uses in John chapter 3, verse 12, when he spoke to Nicodemus, he said, "If I speak to you earthly things and you do not believe, how shall you understand if I speak to you heavenly things?" Now that perfectly illustrates the point of a parable. He knows we have trouble understanding spiritual things, so he speaks to us in earthly pictures. He says, if I speak to you spiritual things, you will not understand. So what do I do? I speak to you in earthly pictures. Now if you can understand the earthly picture, then you will understand by extension what I am saying to you spiritually. But if you cannot even understand the earthly picture, how are you going to understand the spiritual things that I speak to you in plain language? You won't grasp what I am saying. Now that seems perfectly easy to understand.
Now, here then we come towards the conclusion of our message. And we begin to realize one thing. The Lord Jesus is trying to bring the truth to us in such a way that we can understand it in terms of pictures, in terms of birds, of flowers, of trees, of the sunshine, of the things you look around. He is speaking to us because he knows our spiritual understanding is so dull that he speaks to us as a teacher would speak to Sunday school children. Now I am sure some of you have taught Sunday school children. What do you do? When you speak to Sunday school children, do you open Romans chapter 8 and you begin, "Now, salvation is..." and you begin to give them an exposition of salvation, and all the children look at you and think, "Now what exactly is he saying?" Of course you don't teach children like this. Why? Because they can't understand. So how do you teach children? What do you do? Have you ever seen how Sunday school teachers are always resorting to parables? Always returning to pictures? Why? Because they don't want the children to understand? No, of course, because they want the children to understand.
Then why do you use pictures? Why not speak plain language? The simple reason is that children cannot understand plain language. You've got to put it in pictures to help them to grasp it. And that's exactly what the Lord Jesus is doing. He comes to this multitude of people, most of them farmers, you well remember. What does he want to do? Is he going to give them an exposition as Paul does in Romans 8? Of course not. They can't understand it. What does he do? He speaks to them on their level. He tells them a story. He tells them a story for them to think about. And gradually, as they think about it, they get the message that is inside. Just as you sow the seed of a story in a child's heart, so that as the child grows and thinks about it — "Oh yeah, I begin to see now what was the point of that story." That is the whole purpose of the parable. God wants us to understand.
Now this takes us on to the question of Christians. Why then do Christians have such great problems understanding? Why? Well, because it is said here that their eyes they have shut. Their spiritual responses are dull. They do not open their eyes to the things of God. Paul says the same thing in 2 Corinthians 4, verse 3. He says, our gospel is not hidden. When Paul went out to preach the gospel, he did not preach so that they didn't understand. He preached with the intention that they should understand. And that is why he says in 2 Corinthians 4, verse 3, if our gospel is concealed or veiled or hidden, it is hidden only to those who are perishing. Why is it hidden to those who perish? Because they do not want to hear the truth. They do not want to respond to God's word.
Now here, in summary, contains an essence of truth we must grasp. You will understand only so much truth as you are willing to obey. I want to repeat this. It is the secret of the Christian life. It is the secret as to why some people are saved and some not saved, why some people become mighty spiritual giants and some people become spiritually nothing, spiritual dwarfs. And I repeat it again: you will only understand God's word in proportion as you are willing to obey it. By shutting the eyes is an act of will. They don't want to hear it. They don't want to see it.
I fear today that even if you are a Christian, you may have opened your eyes only in part. The rest you don't want to hear. You want only so much of the gospel as will be sufficient to get you to heaven. More than that, you don't want to hear. Am I right or am I wrong? I fear I touch you at the sore spot there. I suspect that many people go through great rallies, evangelistic rallies, because they only want so much of the gospel as will get them to heaven — no more and no less. And they hope that that will be the minimum, that the minimum will be required of them. Once that, that's enough. More than that, they don't want to hear any more than that.
Now if you think like this, you may end up with nothing at all. That's the significance of these words: "To him that has, will more be given. To him that has not, even what he has, he will lose." Or what he thinks he has, he will lose. You see, the point is this: you never know how much is just enough. When you come to the word of God, have you not often said, "Oh, I don't really like to listen to this. I don't think we have to practice this. This is far too demanding. This is not possible to practice." When the Lord Jesus says, "Except a man take up his cross and deny himself and follow me, he cannot be my disciple," what do you say? "Oh no, that's asking too much. Too much. Surely you can reduce the price of the gospel to something lower than that. Surely there must be the sale season right now. I mean, you have to come down with your prices. You've got to appeal to the crowd." The cost is too high. How do you expect me to be saved, become a disciple, if you want me to deny even myself? No way.
But the preacher comes along and says, "Now brothers and sisters, to be saved costs you nothing. Oh yes, all you do is believe in Jesus. Hallelujah! And you will be saved. And you will have peace, and you will have joy." See, I can do it pretty well too, right? Not bad. I can do that too. Then why don't I do it? Because I know I will not be speaking the truth. "It will cost you nothing. All you got to do is sign the decision card. But first you come forward while the choir is singing. They sing beautifully. Your heart is being moved. And while everybody is quiet, every head is bowed, you will come to the front. And thereafter a counselor will speak to you. All you got to do — that's all you got to do — believe in Jesus. That's all you got to do."
Oh, this is wonderful. Believe in Jesus. I am not even told what that means. What is there to worry about? There is no cost, nothing. I'm willing to listen to this. This I'm willing to listen to any time. Because it costs me absolutely nothing. And in fact, it is stated unashamedly: you have nothing to lose, only something to gain. As White Law put it in "The Reason Why," that very well publicized tract of which I'm utterly ashamed, I have to say. He is a businessman who once operated in Shanghai and wrote this tract which is distributed by the millions. And not surprisingly, of course, everybody is willing to have something for nothing. And so he goes around saying, "You see, becoming a Christian means you have everything to gain and you have absolutely nothing to lose." Now you read the Bible and you tell me where in the Bible you see this. "Except a man deny himself" — that's what Jesus said. But Mr. White Law and other people like this have other ways to present the gospel.
I don't intend to do this. I'm going to speak the truth. As I have said before, even if every single person walks out, if nobody ever comes to worship in this place again, it doesn't worry me. I have to speak the truth. That's my commission. If that truth blinds a person, it is not because I desire it to blind a person. It is because that's what the truth will do to those who don't want to hear it.
My brothers and sisters, I ask you to judge for yourself whether this is the gospel which we preach, whether this is what God is saying to us. He is not willing that any should perish. He paid the price of our redemption. But he wants a total response from us. He gives himself completely to us. The least he requires from us is that we give ourselves totally to him. That is what belief in the biblical sense means. Not just that Jesus died for me, but that because he died for me, I believe with the total response of saying from now on what the apostle Paul said: "I live no more for myself, but for him who died for me and rose again."
Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5, nobody ever lives to himself again who is a Christian. He lives only for him, that is, for Jesus who died for him. That is the gospel. And anything else that is preached that says all you have to do is believe that Jesus died for you — that's not all. That is an important, essential part of it, but not all. If you believe that Jesus died for you, if you really believe it, what should be your response? Even if you didn't know the Bible, what should be your response? For me, I can see the only response is that if he gave himself for me, I give myself for him. That's the only response of faith possible. Where else can we lower the price of salvation and dilute and adulterate the gospel?
And so my question to you is this. You say you believe in Jesus? Praise God. But do you understand that it means living for him? And again, I am not talking about full-time service and the like. I mean living for him wherever you are right now — as a student, as an office worker, in the factory, wherever you are. Living for Jesus where you are. Doing that work for him, that job for him, studying for him. You belong to him. As Paul says, you were bought with a price. You belong to him. That's why the one title that Paul gloried in is the slave of Jesus Christ. The word servant, as you all know, means slave. Every letter that Paul opens, he says, "I belong to Jesus." He declared, "I have given myself to him. He has bought me. I am his. I am a slave of Jesus Christ. I rejoice to be his slave." Do you rejoice? That is salvation.
He is not willing that any should perish. He speaks to us the truth as plainly as we can understand it. And I have sought to speak to you the truth as plainly as you can understand it. And blessed are you — in verse 16 — "Blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear." Blessed are your eyes. Blessed are you. Who are the "you"? Who? Who is he speaking to? He is speaking to his disciples. Whose eyes are blessed because they see? The disciples. Why? Because they have yielded themselves totally to him. No wonder they are blessed. No wonder they are blessed.
If today you have already committed yourself fully to Christ as the disciples did, then indeed blessed are you. Because now your eyes see. Has it ever struck you how clearly your eyes can see? Do you not praise God? Do you not praise God how clearly your ears can hear? Do you not rejoice in the fact that God has caused the Holy Spirit to fill your heart? As it says in Romans chapter 5, verse 5, he has shed abroad God's love into our hearts by his Spirit. And therefore, the secret — if it is a secret at all — is simply in these words. The whole difference, I say and say once more, whether God's word is open to you or closed to you, is not because God wants you not to understand. God forbid such teaching. God wants you to understand. God wants you to understand. He puts it to you as clearly as it is ever possible to put it. If necessary by illustration, which is what the Lord Jesus does here, by parable. Whether you understand or not depends on you. Yes.