- It is a dangerous thing to hear truth and not pay attention to it. And God may justly take
away from you what you have because you didn't take hold of it, you weren't willing to hear it. (upbeat music) - Welcome again to another episode of the "Straight Truth" podcast. I'm your host Josh Philpot. And we'd really like for you to join us in this conversation, so as you have questions or concerns or maybe topics you'd like to propose, just leave that in the comment section or send us an email. Now remember "Straight Truth" is a listener-supported podcast, so if you'd like more information about how you can help
us produce this podcast week after week, just go to our website, straighttruth.net. Our next question has to do with Jesus preaching in parables. This can be a little bit confusing for anyone who reads the New Testament and they approach this question. There's this funny little
episode where the disciples, Jesus is preaching the parables, maybe the Parable of the Sower, and the disciples come to him afterwards and they're kinda like, "Well,
Jesus, we know some people. "Not us, but we know some
people who are wondering "why you preach in parables." But really they're asking for themselves, and why he's not making the
meaning of those parables absolutely plain to them. So that's our question, why
did Jesus preach in parables, and why did he explain the
meaning only to his disciples and not to the crowds more generally? - It's an interesting question, and what's funny about is we tend to think of the parables now, as believers sitting in church and hearing the preaching of God's Word, we think of parables as helping
us to get ahold of the truth because often they involve stories that are illustrative in nature, and so they tend to be helpful to us. I think about the Parable
of the Sower, for example, or the Parable of the Seed or
however you wanna describe it, and that's helpful. I mean, to think about the seed
falling on the stony ground and falling on the thorny ground. It's just so helpful. But you have to put
yourself back in the shoes of the people who first heard it and had to be wondering,
what does this mean? And why would Jesus do this? Why would he teach in ways
that would cause people to walk away and not
really get the message, and then go privately and
explain it to his disciples so that they could get the message? Well, my answer is let's let
Jesus answer that question, because he answers it. In Matthew chapter 13, verse 10, it says, "Then the disciples came and said to him, "'Why do you speak to them in parables?' "And he answered them, "'To you it has been given "'to know the secrets of
the kingdom of heaven, "'but to them it has not been given. "'For to the one who
has, more will be given, "'and he will have an abundance. "'But from the one who has not, "'even what he has will be taken away. "'This is why I speak to them in parables, "'because seeing they do not see, "'and hearing they do not hear, "'nor do they understand. "'Indeed, in their case, "'the prophecy of Isaiah
is fulfilled that says, "'"You will indeed hear
but never understand, "'"and you will indeed
see but never perceive." "'For,'" and this is important, "For this people's heart has grown dull, "and with their ears they can barely hear, "and their eyes they have closed, "lest they should see with their eyes "and hear with their ears "and understand with their heart and turn, "and I would heal them." And so what Christ is
explaining to his disciples is this is actually now a form of judgment. "I've spoken to them plainly,
I've spoken to them clearly. "And what I've given them,
they haven't received. "Their ears are dull,
their hearts are hard. "I was willing to heal them, bless them, "but they would not. "Therefore, when I teach in a way "that my disciples have
access to but they don't, "it's just. "It is a form of
demonstrating God's judgment "against people who won't listen." So the parables, while
we find them helpful now because the Lord have saved us and we have access to these things and we have his explanations for us in Scripture as the teaching itself, while they're helpful to us, it would have been to his disciples, they actually express something that we need to take seriously, which is it is a dangerous
thing to hear truth and not pay attention to it. And God may justly take
away from you what you have because you didn't take hold of it, you weren't willing to hear it. - Yeah, you just hit on something that made me think of
modern day preaching, 'cause I've heard people say that we should preach as Jesus preached, and really the thruster or maybe the overarching
emphasis on our sermon or our method for how we communicate should be in a story sort of form because that's what Jesus
did with parabolic preaching. What would you say to that? - I think you just
raised a wonderful thing for us to think about, and that is, yeah. I mean, if you practice
what Jesus practiced with the parables, you'd be practicing a method that was intended to express judgment. - Right, that's what makes me. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. The normal approach to preaching
that we see in Scripture is you read the text, you explain the text, you illustrate the text,
you synthesize the text, you apply the text. I mean, that's what preaching is. We recently had a conference here on the priority of preaching, and Dr. Steven Lawson was with us and he took Peter's sermon
on the day of Pentecost and he demonstrated how all the elements of expository preaching
are able to be recognized in the method that Peter used
when he preached that sermon. That is how preaching is to be done. Let's take people to
the text of Scripture, read it as he said, and
I say a hearty amen to. The only time our preaching is inerrant is when we're reading the text. So read the text of Scripture, and then you explain it. And as you explain it, you illustrate it with other passages of Scripture that deal with the same subject, and you summarize it, you synthesize it, you help people understand how all this relates to itself, and then you apply it and
you exhort people with it, you call people to obey
it, to respond to it. And you do it with the heart of God, which is God as though he's
making his appeal through us. We exhort people, beg people
to be reconciled to Christ. So we are acting as evangelists
and as feeding shepherds as we teach the Word of God. So I would not agree with the idea that because Jesus told
stories in parables that's what preaching is today. We have many other examples
in the New Testament as to what preaching should be, and it's not that, it's something else. - And I wonder, who was
Jesus' audience when he says, "Seeing they may not see, and
hearing they may not hear"? Who's the audience there? Because it's clear that
some people believe in him during the time that he's on earth. Not just his disciples who are gonna begin the Church afterwards, but people believe. So is it an indictment
on Israel generally, or the Pharisees, the teachers? - No, the unique reference
there, of course, would have reference
to the Jews, to Israel. And Christ came in terms of the historical flow of the gospel where it begins and the work
flows outward to the nations. It begins with the nation of Israel, and they had a covenantal
relationship with God as a nation. It's not to say that every
Israelite was a believer, they were not. But God had formed a special
relationship with this nation, to use them as a conduit for the proliferation of his
message throughout the world, and they had failed in that task. And so they had been given much but they had wasted
what they had been given as a whole, as a nation. So that's the reference Jesus has in mind. - And for many hundreds of years, I mean, he quotes Isaiah 6, and that's Isaiah's message to the people. - Exactly. - To preach but they're
not going to hear or listen to what you preach. And Isaiah's prophesying in 700 BC, and yet Jesus is doing the same thing. - This is the culmination of
judgment upon that nation. I mean, God has been very patient, and now he has spoken to them in Son. Spoken to them in many different ways throughout all the ages. Prophets and many different ways, and now he's spoken to
them in his own Son. And as a whole, not each and
every individual Israelite, but as a nation, they've
rejected their Messiah. So the parables were an
expression of judgment. - Thanks again for joining
us for this episode of the "Straight Truth" podcast. Now if you've made an observation or have a question
related to this episode, just leave that in the
comment section below. And be sure to go to our
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Truth" is a production of Walking in Grace Ministries, the preaching and teaching ministry of Pastor Richard Caldwell. For more information, go
to walkingingrace.org. (upbeat music)
