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We will stop and I will be giving a report of our opportunity to partner with them for three years in mission, work and financially. Maybe a little bit on September ninth when we get back to our regularly scheduled programming. Wednesday night programming will be reported. I'll give you one little bit of a report today. I walked up to a police officer and I introduced myself, and he introduced himself. He said, 'Where are you from?' And I said, 'I am from a town called Ocean Springs, Mississippi down on the coast.' And he said, 'Well man, you've come at a tough day.' He said it's a scorcher; it's eighty-four degrees.
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And the humidity is in the low forty percent. I said, 'Man, you are right. I am about to burn up.' So, anyway, that was pretty nice. I invite you to open up your Bibles with me to Matthew the thirteenth chapter as we continue our verse-by-verse exposition on it. Gospel, man. We come to a new section, somewhat in all fifty. It's all one holy spirit inspired word by word narrative. And chapter thirteen begins like this: 'The same day when Jesus went out of the house and sat by the seaside.'
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And great multitudes were gathered together unto him, so that he went into a ship and sat, and the whole multitude stood on the shore. And he spake many things unto them in parables. Parables. Let's put this in context now. So far from Matthew chapter three until today, and somewhat beyond Matthew 13, Jesus' experiences are all taking place in Galilee in the north, in and around that beautiful area of the Sea of Galilee. Capernaum is his headquarters. It's where he goes to every night after he has traveled some preaching. It's where he has been.
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Home base, in Galilee in Capernaum. Don't forget that because if you are staying with us, staying with me through Matthew, we're going to find something out later that is very telling. It gives us a great warning for any city. But Jesus has been preaching. He preaches the Sermon on the Mount right outside of Capernaum in Galilee. After he preaches the sermon on the mount, he walks through that multitude, a huge multitude, and a leper approaches him. And then a centurion approaches him. And Matthew chapter eight and nine record miracle after miracle proclaiming that Jesus is God. He does only what God can do. The Pharisees think them on that because in John three, we see that Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night says.
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We know that you come from God because no man could do these things. It was very part and parcel to the miracles of chapter eight, and then chapter nine, and all into chapter ten. In chapter eleven and twelve, he encounters rejection. People began to reject the word of God; they began to reject him. We just finished those chapters last week. We talked about the many types and reasons and manifestations of what it means to reject the Lord Jesus Christ. Some of them very subtle, some of them very dynamic. As a matter of fact, some of them have rejected so much and so hard that they committed the blasphemy of the holy spirit. And Jesus said it's too late for you to ever be saved. You have crossed.
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The deadline, and it's done. You will die in your sins. And how long that particular group lived after that, I don't know. There was no way for them to be saved because they had spoken against the holy spirit of God, who was convicting them and drawing them to Christ. That was Matthew eleven and twelve. We wind up in chapter twelve. At the house in Capernaum, somebody's house perhaps Peter's house and Jesus' mother and brothers come up. The crowd, the multitude is outside and they cannot get inside. They tap somebody on the shoulder and say, "Go in and tell him to interrupt his preaching, interrupt his teaching, whatever he's doing and tell him his mother and his brothers are outside." Remember what we dealt with that last week.
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And Jesus says, 'Who is my mother?' And he says something remarkable. He talks about what it means to be in the family of God. Now we come to verse one, right after that encounter, Jesus leaves the house and goes by the seaside. Notice the word 'multitude' is used several times in these two verses, two and a half verses that I read to you. There's always a multitude in Galilee. The events that we just described, Matthew eleven and twelve, Matthew ten, they all took place all within about a year and a half in Jesus' ministry. And so Jesus must have had a tremendous schedule.
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Have you ever had a year that was so busy it just never stopped? And you said, "I am going to September is a down month. I am not going to do anything." But all of a sudden, something else comes up. You ever had that experience, Miss Tracy? We've had that experience. And I want to tell you, Jesus was having that. It just seems there was one multitude after another gathering around—one for miracles, one him to speak less than. And miracles, but want him to speak, want to be around him, want to learn something, want to hear something, want to see something. So this multitude must have followed him to the seaside from the house, and no doubt gathered up more people as they walked to the shore. Which if it was in Peter's house it wasn't far at all. The crowd is so big he has to get in a boat and push off a little bit. And he sits down, and he begins to speak to them in parables.
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Now that is fascinating. That is a unique thing. Previously, he had used little bitty parables, easy to understand. He talked about the light of the world and a candle being under a bushel, and everybody understood that he had talked about different things about life. Building on a rock, things like that. Building on sand and things like that. Everybody get that. Anybody and everybody understand that. But now in chapter 13 it's different. His parables are more in depth. The uniqueness of chapter 13 is very telling. It is a blessing, but at the same time it is a warning.
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And he speaks in parables. At this stage, Jesus began in his ministry to adopt this way of teaching in a deliberate manner. A parable is very easy; it means to come alongside or to cast alongside. That's what it means: 'parabolo.' Throw alongside it is a story. A parable is a story from real life or a real life situation, or an activity from which a spiritual truth is drawn. It is a story from life about life. It is an earthly story with a heavenly meaning. In Matthew thirteen, there are seven parables.
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Now we're not going to cover all of them today. But I want to give you a little introduction to these seven parables. They are called the parables of the mystery of the kingdom. There are seven parables, and what Jesus is doing is he's giving us insight into what the life for the follower of Jesus is. What we can expect from now until Jesus comes back and establishes His kingdom. So there are seven expectations, seven things that will be forever that we are experiencing right now. Jesus in parabolic form told us to expect these things. And so for the next several weeks, we're going to give. I think six weeks, we're going to give.
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These parables, and we're going to say this is what we can expect, and this is how it's manifested right here in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, in the year of our Lord twenty six. The parables of the mystery of the kingdom in Matthew thirteen is Jesus just saying, 'All right, guys, this is what it's going to be like in my kingdom.' Includes the church because we're the church today. We're the church, so we're part of that kingdom. Jesus gave them before the church age, but now we're in the church age. So we can apply them to the church age, and we get applied by our community. And the first parable he gave was that famous parable of the sower and his seed. The sower went out to sow. Many of you may know it by memory, and it talks about the soils and the birds and the weeds and all that. Remember that?
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And choke it out through good grain, and then it chokes down, and there is no more. And then it's a good ground; the soil falls on good ground, and it grows and produces fruit. By the way, I am jumping the gun a little bit, but that is the king of all parables; it is the parable of parables. If you can grasp the meaning of this sentence, I think it is very important. You know, if you want to understand the essence of the content in this text, you need to be careful with the wording. The user wants me to act as an editor and polish the transcript. So, if you are going to talk about why did Jesus speak in parables? Why did He talk in parables? And we're going to talk about how do you understand the Bible?
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What does it take to understand the word of God? When you get up in the morning and you say, 'I am going to have my Bible time and read my Bible,' what does it take to understand? What does it take to understand sitting here listening to one of my brilliant sermons? What does it take to understand when I am not so brilliant? What does it take to understand the word of God? So let's look and see what happens. Verse three, and he spake many things unto them in parables. And then he gives the parable of the sower. Now he explains it later, but before he explains it, the Bible says, 'And the disciples came unto him.' So apparently they left out the multitude and he's alone with his disciples. They kind of cornered him off somewhere by themselves. And verse ten, and he says, 'Why do you speak unto them in parables?'
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And he answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mystery of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. For whosoever hath, shall be given; and he shall have more abundance. But whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath. Therefore speak I to them in parables, because they seeing see not. And hearing, they hear not; neither do they understand. And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, Which said: By hearing you shall hear and shall not understand; and seeing you shall see and shall not perceive. For this people, these multitudes, these people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing; in their eyes they have closed.
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Lest at any time, they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and should understand with their heart and should be converted, and I should heal them. But blessed are your eyes for they see and your ears for they hear. For verily I say unto you that many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which you see and have not seen them, and to hear those things which you hear and have not heard. And then he explains, not to the multitude but to his disciples only, the meaning of the parable. So why did Jesus speak in parables? Let me give you a few things, and then I want to give you four.
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Four facts, four characteristics that it must happen. Four things that must happen for you to understand the Bible, and it's right here in our text. First of all, let's look at the purpose of parables. As you see, his disciples came and they asked, 'Wouldn't you say that's like a prayer? They're talking to the Lord.' Or why do you speak in parables? Now there have been many different answers to this question. You read commentary after commentary, Sunday school quarterly after quarterly, hear different sermons on it, and there are many different answers to this question. Why did Jesus speak in parables? Some would say, 'Well, he spoke in parables to soften the blow. To make his teachings a little bit more palatable. He wanted to have some tact.'
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So he gave a hard truth in story form. There is just one issue with that, though; it's wrong. And then he just wanted to make it easier for people to receive. Another is Jesus spoke in parables to make his teaching more clear, easier to understand. He spoke in parables so we would grasp them. That does happen sometimes. An illustration or a story like that does help you understand the truth. The parable of the sower certainly does it, but that's not the reason Jesus spoke in parables. It's not the reason if He wanted these two things to take place, He probably would have never given us the Sermon on the Mount as He did. He probably would have just always started out with parables.
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Stayed with it. Others have said that his teaching was to help us remember. He told in parables because you know it's easier to remember truth with association. You associate something very common and very known to understand a new truth, and it would be remembered easily. All these answers are very understandable, but they're not the answer Jesus gave.
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They're not the answer Jesus gave because I read to you the answer He gave to the disciples. Not a one of these was there, but that's what we all want to hear. Let me tell you two reasons that Jesus gave for why He spoke in parables. Number one was to conceal truth, to hide truth. Can you imagine? He said, 'I am teaching in parables, so the multitudes will not understand. I don't want them to understand my truths.' Now that just doesn't sound like Jesus, does it? But he said it. He said to them, 'It is not given to them these truths.'
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Truth, the mysteries understanding the kingdom is not given. I am not giving them that truth. You have to understand this was not just a one time thing. This was a buildup. We had just finished an entire two chapters on a people who had heard the truth and rejected it. Remember those people? First of all there were the indifferent people who just went about life, ignoring God's word and going on without it. We read about the indignant people who were hateful and got angry as Jesus was preaching and confronted him and blasphemed the Holy Spirit. Then we saw a group of people in chapter twelve who said, 'Give us a sign, give us something more.' We've heard you say these things. We want a sign. Jesus said, 'All you are going to get is the resurrection,' and you are not going to believe that. Remember that?
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We saw the guy who was possessed with a demon, and the demon left him. He cleaned his life up. He was seeking improvement without regeneration. He was seeking to be all cleaned up in his life and all that, and reformation without regeneration. He didn't want to repent of his sin. He just wanted to quit sinning because the consequences were getting bad. So he just turned over a new leaf, rather than becoming a new man in Christ, and the demon came back seven times. Remember that? And then we saw his mothers and his brothers came, and they were very familiar with Jesus. They were some that were just involved in his life. His brothers rejected him and did not receive him and were not saved or followers of Christ. And it's all that multitude that Jesus is saying they've rejected. I am not going to give them any more truth because they rejected the truth. I gave you.
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That's a principle of God that we don't like to hear, and we don't like to recognize, but it is over and over in Matthew nine, ten, eleven, and twelve. And now in verse thirteen, Jesus says, 'I am speaking in parables because to them, it is not given. They're not going to understand what I am teaching you because they don't want to. They have rejected truth.' That's tough. Let me give you the second reason Jesus gave.
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He said, "I speak in parables not only to conceal truth but to reveal truth." Look at verse eleven. They said, "Why do you speak in parables?" He answered and said unto them, his disciples, "Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. But to them it is not given. They've rejected the King. I am not about to tell them about my kingdom. It's none of their business. You receive the king. I am going to tell you everything I can about the king. If you, you'll never understand the kingdom of God until you know the King personally. You got to get on with the King. Amen. You got to get on with the King and His disciples were the ones who came to Him in poverty of spirit, and they mourned their sin."
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And they realized they had nothing in them. They were weak and had no power within them to correct themselves and to make themselves right with God. So they hungered and thirsted for righteousness, and God gave it to them through Christ. And they were all ears for Jesus; they heard, and they listened, and they learned. They didn't always get it right; they weren't perfect, but they had a heart for the Word of God. God said, 'You have a heart.' I'll fill your heart with it. You want to know the King and follow the King? I am going to tell you about His kingdom, and that's what the Sermon on the Mount did. They rejected poverty of spirit, they rejected the fact that Jesus called their sin out, they rejected the King. No way are they going to know about the Kingdom. And so, the purpose of these parables is to conceal and to reveal.
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Second of all, let me show you the principle of these parables. Look at verse twelve: 'For whosoever has, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance; but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he has.' Jesus says this is common sense. They don't want it, so I am not going to give it to them. Let me give you an illustration. Let's say. Daniel has a million dollars. You all know that? He has one million dollars. Now he invested five hundred thousand of that one million in this business, and he took the other five hundred thousand. Of course, I have to tithe. He took the other half and he invested it in.
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Business B. Business A is thriving. Business A is going strong. Business A is making a return over and over again, multifold, but business B is foundering and losing out. What is billionaire Daniel going to do? He's going to take his money out of business B before it's all gone and put it into business A. You want to know more of the Word of God, you better accept the Word of God that's been given to you. You see, God's not going to invest in somebody who rejects His Word. God's not going to invest in somebody with His Holy Spirit's illumination and somebody who's not going to say, 'Yes, Lord, that's it. I'll do it. I'll lay it out on top of it.' Thank you, Lord. I want more and more.
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He's going to invest in the one who's humbly before the Lord says, 'Oh God, that's your word. I receive it and I help you. I act on it in the power of the Holy Spirit.' And so that's the principle of heaven. That's a principle of the Word of God. But now not only the purpose of these parables and the principle behind these parables, but let's look at the prophecy verse fourteen. And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, which says, 'By hearing you shall hear and shall not understand; seeing you shall see and not perceive. These people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed. Lest at any time, they could see with their eyes and hear with their ears and should understand. And I'll come in and heal them, save them, convert them, give them a new life.'
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Response and their response to the word of God that was prophesied by Isaiah. What was happening on this day. And what is happening in our day is this fundamental truth and a fundamental fact exactly what Jesus said would happen: people would hear, but they would plug their ears. Now we saw some theological circles that were saying, 'Well, God said.' I am going to give the word of God to them, but not to them. I am going to move upon them, but not on them. The Bible says they closed their ears. They made that choice. They responded negatively to God's word. They're the ones who said no, I am going to have anything do with it. I am plugging my ear and God has said, okay, you plug them tight enough.
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I'll just go to where investment is. I'll just go to business A, and you won't receive the word of God anymore. That's the prophecy. That's the way God has worked. As a matter of fact, it's a way of God's operation from the beginning of time. I can imagine Jeremiah had a very difficult time as he was preaching in the Babylonians were right at the front door. They would soon be taken captive for seventy years. And finally, God came and said, "Jeremiah, quit preaching and don't even pray for them." They rejected me so much. That's what Isaiah said would happen. And Jesus applies that to us today. It's not good. They even plug up their ears.
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You remember in the Sermon on the Mount, one of my favorite sermons. I like this sermon. It's what I call a pocket sermon. If I go preach somewhere else, I am going to carry with me preaching. Remember, 'Hogs and dogs don't pray.' How many were in that sermon? Y'all are selected church members of the year. Most of them don't even know what I preached last week. I don't even remember what I preached last week, but Jesus said, 'Don't cast your pearls before his line, don't throw the holy meat out to the dogs. They don't make any discernment; they're going to trample the pearls. They're not going to digest that.' And then he goes on to say, 'Ask him, you shall receive.' He said, 'The proper response when you hear truth from God's word is to say, 'God, I need your help to obey this. I need your help to apply it in my life.' I will answer you.' But don't be a hog or a dog; be a repentant person hearing the word of God. These were the hogs and the dogs.
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We don't want them to do it. And God said, "I told you thousands of years ago through the prophet Isaiah that you would do this." And then in verse fifteen, "the problem: these people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes." They have a heart problem. Listen, understanding this book, listen to me. Understanding the truths from this book, spiritual truth is never an issue with the intellect. This book is not so high that we have to strive to get.
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The truth is, though they are so low, we just have a hard time condescending to obey. It's a heart problem. You say, "Well, preacher, I kind of take offense to that because I want to obey God. I want to follow God. I have a sensitive spirit and I just there's just a few texts that I have I can't understand. I can't get it." We're going to address that in a minute. We'll get to that in a minute.
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But I want to tell you what understanding this book is an issue of the heart. It's a spiritual dynamic. It has nothing to do with the intellect. If it has something to do with the intellect, six-year-olds and seven-year-olds couldn't be saved. Children have our time coming across. It is a heart issue. When God speaks to the heart and your response, He didn't say these people are intellectually challenged. He said no, their heart is waxed gross. What does that mean? It simply means that it was a hard heart made thick. The word literally makes reference to a fatty heart made thick.
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And they were thick around, thick made thick with their pride, their sin, their arrogance, their traditions, whatever it was that they have surrounded their heart with. They would not let God's word, the empowering work of the Holy Spirit, penetrate. That was the problem. They were stout in their opposition; therefore, their hearts remained dull, and so it's a hard issue. But look at verse sixteen. Now look at, don't be discouraged. Look at verse sixteen. But blessed are your eyes; you are blessed with spiritual insight. They see, you're blessed with spiritual insight and ears because you hear; you are blessed disciples.
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Now they didn't get it all. Peter was in their midst, and Peter would write thirty years later. You know what Peter would write? Paul writes some things that are hard for us to understand. Paul, Peter was saying that about Paul, and he was sitting right there. You got it, Pete? I am going to give it to you. Don't worry about those things that are hard to understand. I am going to give you insight. If you have a heart for my words, be obedient to it. And a heart for the King, I am going to tell you all about kingdom life. I am going to tell you all about it. You'll get it. You'll get it. And so let me give you four requirements for understanding the Word of God. You write these down. You write these down; they're free; God gave them to me, but I am going to give them to you. Anything I got is free—well, mostly anyway.
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Number one, the word of God has to be given and received. I am not talking about giving somebody a Bible and then saying thank you. Stan, I am not just talking about giving out a new testament to a fifth grader and they said, thank you. I am talking about as you open up the pages of the scripture and the Lord speaks to you, and you have a challenge before you, you have a conviction through God's word. You are confirmed by God's word. You read something in the Bible and you realize, 'Oh, praise God, I am on the right track. Praise God, I am handling this good.' Or you are reading it and you say, 'Oh man, look how it reveals my sin. Look how it reveals my sin.' I am talking about this is a word from God from the Bible. And by the way, if you got a word from God, it's going to come from the book, this book.
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It's not gonna come from somewhere else. It's gonna come from this book. Be careful of what you are thinking that contradicts the word of God. This is the canon of scripture. This is God speaking, right? I hear people all the time, 'I just want to hear God speak.' Well, read your Bible! Read your Bible! God spoke. You said, 'Well, I just want more.' You can't handle between the pages and maybe you can't handle what's here. We'll talk about that another day. But no one can understand the word of God in terms of their intellect or their own wisdom. It can only be spiritually discerned. The Bible says in First Corinthians two and verse fourteen, 'But the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them.'
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An unsaved man, a man who is of the flesh, let the flesh dominate his sinful flesh, dominate his life and his thinking. He cannot receive a word from God. He cannot know that because he refuses to receive it. He says neither can they know them because they are spiritually discerned. If you know any principles from God's Word for your life, it's because the Holy Spirit has given it to you and you receive it.
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That's the only way. This is the most unique book ever written, because it has to be spiritually discerned, and it's the only book inspired by the Holy Spirit. Number two, not only does it have to be given and received, it's being given. Are you receiving? Number two, you have to value the Word of God. Look at verse seventeen. For verily I say unto you that many of the prophets and the righteous men have desired to see the things you see and have not seen them. They desire to hear the things you are hearing and have not heard.
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The prophets of old, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah, Malachi, all of them looked forward and said there is something that's missing because all the prophets saw was the first coming of Christ and the second coming. They saw it as one; they didn't see the church ages. They didn't see the parables of the mystery of the kingdom. It was a mystery to them. But Jesus says now. This mystery of life between the first coming and the second coming, the church age is yours. I am giving it to you. I am revealing it to you. I am showing you how it'll work. I am going to give you the apostle Paul, I am going to give you the apostle Peter, I am going to give you Corinthians, I am going to give you Galatians. All of them written over churches. The prophets had none of that. They just saw the first and second coming. That's it.
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They saw Bethlehem and they saw the land. They saw a suffering servant on the cross, yes, but they didn't see the church. They don't have what we have. You say, "The preacher." Does that mean I am more? I was one of them: Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah. I would like to think that, but I am trying to read it to you. He's brought up, but the Holy Spirit helps you. They didn't see the indwelling Holy Spirit. They saw the Holy Spirit coming upon them. They didn't see the Holy Spirit coming within. And so, you have to value the Word of God. You have to place a high value on it. Let me ask this:
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Where is your Bible going to go when you get home today? It's going to be put on some shelf. If you invited me over for supper, would you say, 'Oh, let's get our Bible on the table'? Where is your Bible going to be tomorrow morning when you wake up before work? Is it going to be in your hand with eyes gazed upon it in prayer and spirit?
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And humble spirit that you might have God speak to you. Do you value the scriptures, Old and New Testament? Do you have a longing to learn them, a longing to see how they can impact your life in humble obedience? Do you value the word?
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I pray you do. I pray you do for many reasons. One reason: Do you realize how many of our forebears died for the truth of this book? Do you remember and recall how many of our founding fathers stood before councils with a word of God on their lips and burning in their heart, only to be burned?
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We have a rich heritage of our fathers who stood for the gospel. And another thing, only the Holy Spirit can give you that value and the value of the Word of God. If you don't have that, then you need to get it. If you don't have value for it, it may be because the Holy Spirit doesn't dwell in you and you have no appetite for it. It's like pearls before swine. It's like giving that which is holy unto the dogs. It's just a mean thing. The Holy Spirit will give you an appetite and a love for the pages of.
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And by the way, that love and appreciation will grow as you do. I've never met a growing and knowing Christian who didn't want to grow in the Lord. Man, get greedy with it! Value it! Get greedy with it! And then thirdly, you have to be intimate with the Lord. Notice Jesus explained if you read chapter thirteen, you will notice that. Jesus only explains a few of the verses. He doesn't explain them all. There is a couple of them he doesn't explain, and I asked him one day as I studied this. I said, "Lord, that's the one to me that would need explanation." And you didn't take your disciples aside and explain it. So Lord, why is that? And the Holy Spirit just showed me something.
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In connection with scripture, in the middle reference guide where it refers to other verses of scripture, and it was just like the Lord said, "I did explain it; just not in Matthew thirteen." You want it easy, don't you? You don't want to have to put through pages. So when we get to the parable of the leaven and the loaf, when we get to the parable of the birds landing in the mustard tree, we're going to have to go to other scriptures. Scripture interprets scripture. Amen. You want to learn scripture? Let me tell you how to learn scripture. Learn scripture. You interpret scripture with other scripture. The best people come to me all the time, preacher, I need a good commentary and guidebook on the Bible. The answer is the Bible. The Bible explains the Bible. If you need an answer to a question of one verse, it might be in another verse somewhere else.
00:42:42 
Now that's another point that I wasn't intending on making, but you learned something today. You have to be intimate with the Lord. You have to be spirit filled. Jesus only gives these explanations to the disciples. Notice here in verse three of our text or verse ten of our text. They came to him and they said, 'Why do you speak in parables?' They prayed, 'Lord, why are you speaking in parables? We need to understand this.' After Jesus explained why he spoke in parables, he gave them the explanation for the parable of the sower and the seed. He gave them the explanation of the wheat and the tares. He explained it only to his disciples.
00:43:39 
People who were sitting at his feet, people who were prayerfully approaching him, Lord, help me understand your word. Give me insight in these truths. Help me to be disciplined, Lord, to study and ponder these words. I want to tell you something: the three minute Bible won't cut it. You got to spend time with God if you want to understand the scriptures,' he said well preacher. I work. You know what I work too. Y'all may not think so, but I work too. Y'all know that I work too. If y'all don't think I work, either I am a crook or y'all certainly are dull. But I work too. And it may mean that you have to get up earlier in the morning to spend time in prayer in the Word of God. It might mean you have to turn off that. What do they call that? A little device?
00:44:38 
Amen. The sewer lines keep coming into your home. Might be you have to turn that off. Amen. Might be you have to put prayer about what ESPN is talking about and get into the Gospels, get into the Epistles, get into the Prophets, get into the Minor Prophets, get into the Pentateuch, get into the Word of God and perfectly say, 'Lord, open my eyes that I may see glimpses of truth You have for me. Lord, I don't understand this. Please help me understand it, God. I am going to come back tomorrow morning and get at it again, Lord.' But you got to get intimate with the Lord and spend time with Him in prayer to understand the Scripture. And let me say something while I am on. Can I say something while I am here? Listen, whoever said you have to read the Bible through in a year? Whoever said that? I got to read the Bible through every year and you just.
00:45:35 
Three hundred and sixty five. You just go on through. Let me tell you who said that the companies that market to the market, I think 很好, they're the ones who said that I'd rather you spend a year in the Gospel of John and get it, Amen, and get it. I'd rather you spend a year in the Minor Prophets, Micah, Habakkuk those guys and get it. Then we read it all through in a year and say, "Well, I read my Bible through in a year." Well, good. Tell me a little bit about the book of Shet. Tell me why Jesus spoke to her. But I read it through in a year and marked off the little boxes. I made it real special. I read the morning time and the evening time. I need to know if this is okay with you. Okay, so the user is asking for an explanation of the steps taken to clean up the text. The original text has some issues with punctuation and clarity. For example, 'I think' is followed by Chinese characters, which is incorrect. Also, there are some fragmented sentences like 'Let me tell you something: if you read the Bible through in a year, That's fine ;. You read it through in a year ;. There is nothing wrong with that.' These should be corrected for proper grammar and flow.
00:46:32 
But I am going to tell you why God may be speaking to you out of a certain text of scripture or a passage of scripture. He might be speaking to you out of Romans about His righteousness to give you confidence in your salvation. He might be writing to you out of Galatians to help deal with your legalistic thinking. He might be writing out of First and Second Corinthians to talk to you about repentance and church order. He might be speaking out of the Gospel of John to show him as the Son of God. Spend some time in prayer and praying over it, and reading and studying and journaling. Write it down and get it. You said, 'Preacher, what if I get it wrong?' You keep at it; you'll get it right. You'll get it right. Amen. Spend some time in the Word of God; be intimate with Him.
00:47:23 
Be prayerful as you approach this book. You can't understand it without the Holy Spirit's help. I don't care how long you've been saved, you got to look. It takes me longer to pray over a text than it does to write a sermon over a text. You can ask my beloved Tracy; we'll be going down the highway and I'll say, 'Write this guy.' And I've been spending time praying over a text of Scripture and God just makes it all in my mind, gets it to me. She types it down. I wake up in the middle of the night, say 'Eureka,' write it down. And then I can't read my handwriting; I have to give it to me over again for some reason. In His providence, God acts like that with His Word; He'll give an understanding of it when you need. Spend time in prayer and ask.
00:48:20 
God, ask God for help; He'll give it to you. He gave us His Word to reveal Himself, but also to help us be intimate with Him. And you have prayer and hope. The fourth thing is, you have to be a doer of the Word. You have to do what you know in obedience. Amen. These people walked away. These multitudes walked away, saying, 'I don't know what he meant by that parable, by that story. I don't know what he meant. I guess I'll just walk away and not worry about it.' It's because when Jesus had given them previous truth from His Word, they didn't obey it; they didn't act on it. Listen: if God is going to give you wisdom.
00:49:20 
He's not gonna give you any more wisdom until you act on the wisdom that he's given. Amen. I like to put it this way: maybe this is a little parallel. He's not gonna let you have something till you clean your room. You are not going to get to eat the ice cream till you've eaten your spinach. Amen. You got to be obedient, and God says, "Okay, more is coming." See, the Bible says in the book of James, "Faith without works is dead; it's not going to grow." Faith comes by hearing the Word of God. And hearing can be a dangerous thing. It can be a dangerous thing because if you hear without submission and obedience, it could be dangerous.
00:50:16 
Because God will say, 'I am going to make heaven brass right now. It's not going to break through. You've got to obey me in these small things before I give you greater and more truth.' Greater and more truth, do you respond to the word of God with obedience? But remember this: it doesn't take a seminary degree.
00:50:46 
It doesn't take a Bible college degree to understand the word of God. It just takes a heart, a soul, a good old servant of the Lord who just wants to hear from God, who has poverty of spirit, and they mourn their sin, and they know there is nothing they can do to help themselves.
00:51:16 
They know Jesus sinned without any condition, and they hunger and thirst after the righteousness of God in Christ, and He fills them. They seek first the kingdom of God. They realize what a privilege it is. Every Sunday to come, hear the word of God preached. I'll tell you, it is an utmost privilege that I take very seriously preaching the word of God and preaching it here at First Place.
00:51:46 
Been the greatest life I could ever imagine, and I am still going to go. But I want to tell you, that's all it takes. If God can give you insight, He will give you insight. Ask Him today; He can give it to you through preaching, your own study. But you have to act on it and be obedient, and the light turns up.
00:52:17 
God will give it to you. That's why he preached in parables. From then on, I think it's the Gospel of Mark which says, "And he no longer spoke to them only in these parables." And you can understand the parables with the Holy Spirit's help. So let's bow our heads and pray together. And I want to ask you this question: Do you