October 30, 2013
Are You Listening?
Mark 4:1-12, 21-25, 33-34
I. Hearing and Understanding 4:1-12
II. Personal Responsibility 4:21-25
III. Alone With Jesus 4:33-34
The Rocky Mountains are beautiful, but they can sometimes be deadly. People sometimes wander off from their party, thinking that they know where they’re going, and then they can’t find their way back. Mountains and valleys look remarkably similar, to all the other mountains and valleys.
When someone gets lost in any mountains, search and rescue teams have to be pulled together to cover the area-----and it’s particularly harrowing, when the missing person, is a child.
A family was visiting Colorado and were camping out in a particularly high part of the Rockies-----the mama and daddy were frantic, when they discovered that their daughter was missing-----a rescue team was organized within an hour, and it began to sweep the area, calling out, at regular intervals, for the little girl ---- the poor mama couldn’t stay with the rescue group, and she couldn’t rest either----she thrashed through the woods, screaming her daughter’s name.
After several hours, the mama sat down on a rock, for a minute, to catch her breath and to give her hoarse voice, a minute’s reprieve-----going through her mind over and over was, “how will I find her, how will I find her, how will I find her…” The beauty of the mountains surrounded her, but she was blind to it; birds were singing, but all she could hear was the rescue team, as they crashed through the underbrush, calling her daughter’s name, and yelling to each other. Suddenly, it occurred to her,----if her little girl was yelling or crying, no one would be able to hear her, cause she and the other searchers, was making too much noise.
She quickly approached the leaders of the rescue team, to tell them to be quiet for a minute, so that she could listen-----and within seconds, everyone was silent, standing quietly-----just listening----The mama listened---nothing--- She listened harder. Every pore of her body; every fiber, every muscle, strained to hear the one voice that she was desperate to hear----and then, there it was, almost imperceptible, but still discernable, if you knew what you were listening for--- the precious little voice faintly calling ----Mama, Mama….and by listening carefully, and following the sound of her voice, the little girl was reunited with her family.
The Lord God is speaking to us, trying to get our attention, trying to get us to listen to Him, trying to tell us how much He loves us. Most of the time, we’re making too much noise to hear Him----we fill our lives with physical noise----television, radio, phones and ipods. Or we fill them, with emotional and psychological noise-----work, volunteerism, entertainment, exercise, hobbies, leisure activities, busyness, worry and fear. We thrash through the woods of our lives, lost in darkness and despair, or in bewilderment, anxiety and fear, or in neglect and ignorance.
But God still calls us to listen, and He calls us to come to a quiet place to listen---He calls us to be willing to hear and understand Him. When we rest from the busyness, and turn off the noise, we can enter into God’s holy place. We have to be like the mother, whose daughter was lost, and yearn to hear God’s voice, with the same desperate desire, that she had…We need to delight in God’s voice--- we need to give Him the noise in our lives and let Him, turn it into a silence, that is quiet enough, for us to hear His heartbeat---and, into a silence, that is quiet enough, to understand what He wants to tell us, so that we can obey, whatever it is, that He wants us to do.
I. Hearing and Understanding 4:!-12
What a long and emotional morning, it had been for Jesus----first, His mother and His brother had come to take Him home, so that they could keep Him from getting into any further trouble with the religious leaders---then, the scribes had accused Him of being in league with the devil, which had created a discourse between Jesus and them, which had ended with a solemn warning, about the danger the scribes were in, of blaspheming the Holy Spirit. And last, He had made it clear to everyone, that His true family was not made up of His earthly brothers and sisters and mother, but was made up of whomever was willing, to become a member, of the family of God.
Then, in the afternoon, He left the house in Capernaum, and went down to the shore, of the Sea of Galilee, so that He could continue to preach, The crowd was so big (some scholars believe that it was the largest that He had encountered in His ministry up to that point…) that He had to get in a fishing boat and push out to the middle of the lake and preach from there----
the picture we have, is of a vast crowd of men women and children, from all walks of life, from all states of well-being, from all areas of education, sitting all the way around the lake, like an amphitheatre------ with Jesus, (as was a Rabbi’s custom of teaching), sitting in the middle of the boat, in the middle of the lake, telling stories about the Kingdom, as the water gently lapped the shore.
The still waters of the lake would have acted as a sounding board----every syllable would have been caught up, and amplified, and heard clearly, by the people on the hillside. Scholars say that the acoustics would have been incredible, …..The Lord would have had that figured out, and He would have used the opportunity to capitalize on it.
Did His mother and brothers stay? We can certainly hope that they did----we would have wanted them to stay and listen and understand----not go back home in a huff, mad, wrapped in offended dignity…
As Jesus surveyed the multitude that day, He would certainly have been aware of their diversity and of the fact that there was a whole range of hearing and understanding present---(The people, as a whole, might not have believed what He was teaching, but there would have been some, who would have wanted to know Him more, and to trust His words.) And He would have known, with His whole heart, that the mystery of the kingdom was being worked out, individually, in the lives of each person-----some hearts were coming to Him in faith, and others were hardening their hearts in unbelief. Knowing Jesus’ character, we can rest assured, that He wanted them all to listen to Him, with receptive hearts. He was the Word of God and He had become a man, in order to come and tell the world that God so loved them, that He had sent Jesus as the atoning sacrifice for their sins-------Jesus wanted them all to know that He was the Kingdom of God.
So, He started teaching them in a new way----the old rabbinical method had worked for some, but not for most, so He began to teach in parables. The parables of Jesus, in their simplest explanation, were earthly stories, which had heavenly meanings. The Lord drew them, from everyday events of life, which the people understood and were familiar with. Most of them were about people---- the way they were, the way they interacted with each other; the things that they did and said------all to convey the truth of who God is, and who we are, in relation to Him. The parables are simple in their language, but they are profound in their truth. Easy to understand, if you are a believer and have the Holy Spirit to interpret them for you; and hard to understand, if you aren’t a believer, because you have know way of understanding them without the Holy Spirit’s guidance.
There are 3 strands of truth that we have to keep from becoming tangled, in our minds, when we study the parables of Jesus----salvation truth, church truth and kingdom truth-----if we fail to discern the difference, between these 3 truths, it will lead us to make errors in judgment and understanding and behavior. (We will talk more about this in the next couple of weeks as we continue to study Jesus’ parables) There are many wrong teachings today that are based on, or encouraged by, the wrong interpretation of a parable. Sometimes, a parable contained a certain amount of extra information, in order to set the stage, or provide a setting, for the truth that the Lord wanted to convey. There has been a lot of spiritualizing and false interpretation. of scripture, which has resulted, from trying to force a spiritual meaning, on every single item, in a parable---normally; a parable contains just one central truth---and the truth that that parable is teaching, has to be consistent or line up with, what is taught in the rest of scripture…Hopefully, that truth will jump out at us and shine like a flash of lightening-----it will be a moment of brilliance, passing between our minds and the Lord’s.
Jesus caught the attention of the crowd, by starting the parable----with, ”Listen to this….. By beginning that way, He was involving His hearers in the story, right from the outset, and almost forcing them to make some kind of judgment about it…
It is very probable that at the very moment that Jesus was speaking, there was a farmer in a field that the people could see, who was doing exactly what He was describing in His parable----a sower, sowing his field with seed. That would have been a common sight, that everyone hearing Him. would have either, witnessed, or performed himself, on many occasions.
As a sower sowed his seed, the seed would naturally fall on different kinds of soil----and one of the hardest problems that a farmer in Israel would have had, would have been to get all of the rocks out of the field. The rocks were dug out by hand and typically piled up in rows. These rows of rocks, often turned into footpaths or roads throughout the fields. As the seed was sown, some of it would have fallen on the path or road----not because it was intentional, but because the farmer couldn’t help but miss his aim sometimes, because he was walking and sowing so fast. A certain amount of waste was bound to occur---the sower was prepared for that---the experience of a hundred generations had taught him that he had to sow liberally. And since the ground was hard and there would have been no good soil-----the birds, which would have been in abundance at the time of sowing, would have come and eaten their fill of the exposed seed. Bitter experience had taught the sower that the birds would steal a third, if not half, of his precious seed. His only recourse was to sow plentifully. The problem was not with the seed---it was with the lack of soil , by the wayside, which was unable to receive the seed.
Some of the other seeds would have fallen on rocky soil. It was virtually impossible, at that time, to by hand, get all the rocks out of a field…but because there would have been some soil, maybe just a few inches of a thin layer, but the seeds would have immediately sprung up. Since the soil was so shallow, there would have been very little moisture, and as soon as the sun was up, even a little bit, in the sky, the ground would have dried out---and the plants that had sprung from those seeds must have withered and died quickly-----the problem was that they lacked a sufficient root system, which without it, would have made the sustainability of life virtually impossible. ---there would have been nothing wrong with the seed, because it obviously germinated, again----- it was the soil.
Other seed fell among the thorns----it would have been impossible to remove all the weeds and thorns from the fields, especially along the edges. So, even though, the seeds would have grown up fast and high, the over-abundant weeds and thorns would have quickly choked them. Good seed would have had no chance, once the thorns took over. The thorns and weeds would have competed for every inch of soil.
Finally, there was seed, which fell on the good soil, but even that failed to yield a full harvest, every time-----it might be a 30% or a 60% yield instead----they couldn’t judge, until the harvest came in. So, again, the fault was not in the seed, it was in the fertility of the soil.
Jesus didn’t explain the parable to the multitude----he just admonished them to make sure they were listening and had heard what He was saying. He left the interpretation of the parable up to each person in the crowd-----they had enjoyed His story, but they needed to figure out for themselves, its significance. But He longed for His hearers to comprehend with ever fiber of His being.
Not everyone had ears to hear that day, as we know----and even His disciples, who understood, as much as anybody could, at that point, were a little lost. Mark says that when they got Him alone, they questioned Him about the parable’s deeper meaning. And Jesus responded to them, with a verse taken straight from Isaiah 6:9-10 --- in this passage, Isaiah was told, that his generation, of the nation of Israel, were so far gone in their rejection of God, that they had reached the place, that they would never, collectively, receive Him---but with that being said, God wanted him to keep on preaching, because there were individuals, who would respond to the truth, with all their hearts-----
This was one of His “hard” sayings…. V. 11-12 says “the secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything has is said in parables so that ‘they may be ever-seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding: otherwise they might turn and be forgiven.’” This doesn’t mean that Jesus didn’t want them to be forgiven-----He wants everybody to be forgiven----that’s why He came to the cross---for the whole world to be saved-----but He won’t make or force anybody------so a person has to use his free will, to choose-----In Matthew, the parallel account of this incident sheds a little more light on what Jesus was saying-----“Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. This is why I speak to them in parables, ‘ though seeing, they do not see: though hearing, they do not hear or understand.”
In essence, Jesus was saying that the condition of a person’s heart, like the condition of the soil, determines how well the truth or the seed will be received.
The scribes had originally been given straightforward teaching, which they had rejected, so they were in danger of losing the truth, forever----- which was and is, the only way to the Father. People who reject the truth will eventually lose what little knowledge they have…the Lord won’t take it away from them-----they will ultimately lose it themselves, as they harden their hearts to it.
But, Jesus said, that the people who received the truth from Him, and trusted it and Him, and acted on it, would receive more and more truth.
The parables were full of truth, but only for those who had ears to hear, and hearts to understand.
This principle, is paralleled in other areas of our lives-----(if we learn a foreign language in high school and don’t use it, we will eventually lose the ability to use it-----if we learn to play the violin as a child and don’t play faithfully, we will lose the ability to play at all, eventually----and what has become evidenced to me in the last 2c months, physically, if we fail to exercise a muscle, we will lose the use of it one day (with Parkinson’s-----I have to use it or lose it----that’s why physical therapy is so important---)
We can never lose our salvation----once we are saved , we will forever, be saved-----but we can lose our ability to understand and act on God’s truth, on a daily basis…
What a lesson to us , who sit under the teaching of God’s work week after week, and don’t respond to it-----it would beg us to ask ourselves, “are we really saved?” The writer to the Hebrews must have been trying to explain this truth, when He said in 10:26, “If we deliberately keep on sinning, after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left.” If we repeatedly hear God’s word and refuse to respond to it time and time again, there will come a time, when we become so hardened, that not only will we not obey it, but we won’t be able to obey it.
If we are believers, we should want to respond to His teaching----we have to consciously choose to respond to the truth of God, as we read it and hear it from the pulpit or from another believer. We should do, what Jesus wanted the multitude to do, when they heard the parables----we need to say, “Lord, I hear your truth. What does it mean to me? How can it affect me? What do You, want me to do with this truth? We are so blessed to live on this side of the cross----we have the full Word of God, at our fingertips, to read and study; and we have the Holy Spirit, living in our hearts, always ready to prick us with it, explain it to us, and help us apply it, to our everyday lives.
The people who lived when Jesus did, had seen the most amazing and countless display of miracles-----and they had heard the most gracious and glorious teaching ever given. But Israel, as a whole, led by the Pharisees and the Scribes, with their self-imposed blindness, rejected the Lord Jesus Christ, and then, they subsequently rejected the Church----and they are still rejecting Him and the Church---
When the Jewish leaders rejected the truth of who Jesus was, and rejected the kingdom He was bringing with Him----- the Lord began to explain, through His parables, that the nation of Israel was going to be set aside temporarily, and that He was going to turn His attention to establishing the Church. And He would give the Church, the charge, to carry forward God’s wider purpose of salvation, for everyone who would believe, until His purposes are complete, then after that, He will resume His dealings with Israel. And when that time comes, He will raise a new generation of messengers up, who will proclaim, that a new kingdom is at hand, and that kingdom, will be, the millennial kingdom. As the Church, we are looking forward to that kingdom----that’s why we pray, “thy kingdom come, thy will be done…on earth as it is in heaven.
II. Personal Responsibility Mark 4:21-25
(When Queen Victoria was a child, she didn’t know that she was in line for the throne of England. Her caregivers and instructors, trying to prepare her for the future, were frustrated because they couldn’t motivate her. She didn’t take anything seriously, especially her educational studies. Finally. Her teachers decided to tell her, that she was going to become the Queen of England, one day ---- Upon hearing theat news, Victoria calmly and quietly replied, “Then, I will be good.” The realization that she had inherited that high calling gave her a sense of responsibility that profoundly affected her conduct, from that point forward-----and she never lost it.”)
Jesus finished talking about the parable of the sower, which was about life----which we will finish talking about next week, and turned Himself, to a parable about light. A candle is a remarkable invention. It is a simple tool to use for dispelling the darkness. It’s a powerful thing----------darkness, with all its power to frighten and confuse, is no match for even the smallest flicker of candlelight. The function of a candle is to provide the conduit for the light. A candle does this, at great cost to itself. Its sole purpose is to give itself up to the flame and be consumed. The sun and the stars work on the same principle.
In the spiritual realm, the Lord Jesus is the light, which dispels the darkness. And we know that the light He brings has been provided us with infinite cost---a cost too great for us to even imagine----not just by His death, which was the greatest gift of light, ever given, but by His life, as He put up with the disbelief, from ever corner, of the world He lived in.
When we come to Him, He kindles that same light in us…which brings us to the point of this parable.------The fact that we are light bearers, means that for us, there is also a price to pay, for shining. Our light must not be hidden! We have to place it where and in such a way that it isn’t hidden---(reminds me of the childhood song---“this light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine----hide it under a bush—oh no! I’m gonna let it shine”----all the children in the church would go to the alter and sing at the top of our lungs…) Many people will hate and resent and misunderstand the light, but on the other hand, many will be drawn to it. The light itself is the miracle; we are just the candles. ( a few weeks ago, at FCA---the one coach who was so ugly and mean acting, get out of here now--- followed immediately by the coach who was welcoming and warm----stay as long as you want---the contrast was remarkable…)
Many believers hide themselves----they are reluctant, for whatever reason, to stand up and be counted as a Christian----they are like candles that are hidden away in a cupboard waiting for an emergency that may not come---but if a candle doesn’t help people see, then it isn’t worth anything. Does my life show other people the way to God---how to find Him---how to live for Him? There are all kinds of baskets that we can hide our lights under-----complacency, resentment, embarrassment stubbornness of heart, pride, disobedience and fear…What do we need to do? What do we need to get rid of so that we can let our lights shine?
Jesus makes it clear, that everything hidden, will eventually be revealed----eventually, in our age or the age to come---there will be no more sin, there will be no more darkness, So, what Jesus told His disciples privately, we need to share from the rooftops and mountaintops, with voices, that ring out the truth----God’s truth requires a clear and helpful explanation for the world. As light fills a room---God’s word drives out spiritual darkness-----we dare not hide something, as important as God’s truth, from the people we come in contact with, or the world we live in, or the sphere of influence, that we’ve been given.
And He reminded the disciples to hear His words and to pay attention to them---as He did, over and over again----He didn’t want them to let their guard down, not even for a minute. And He cautioned them to be careful what they listened to and who they listened to. There are so many voices in our world, vying for our attention----we hear good words and terrible words---we hear fanciful words and true words, we hear false words and foolish words; we hear filthy words and uplifting words. Some words flatter and some words reveal----some words comfort and some words hurt----but all words, once they are said, cannot be taken back-----We need to be careful what we watch, what we read and what we listen to.
And the Lord counseled the disciples, that for their part, in the cacophony of voices being heard, they were to measure out wholesome words, to the people, that cross their path, As believers, because we know the truth, we are especially responsible, for telling people about Jesus’ presence in our lives and the truth of the Gospel. And there is something reciprocal about it---the more we pass on to others, the more we will have it passed right back to us.
And finally, the Lord made it clear, that anybody who really hears what the Lord has to say, will hunger to hear more and more------they just want be able to get enough----they will want to spend more and more time at the Lord’s feet, learning everything they can that the Lord wants to tell them. As the heart grows in the knowledge of the Lord, it will never be satisfied unless it is spending more and more time with Him. (Many years ago when Alfred Lloyd Tennyson was Poet Laureate, he was walking one day with a friend in his garden, talking about subjects of public interest at that time. The poet’s friend was a believer in the Lord Jesus and sought out opportunities to testify of Him. Pausing for a minute, he took the poet by the arm and quietly asked, “What do you think of Jesus Christ?” Tennyson pointed to a flower blooming in all its beauty by the pathway, and said, “As the sun is to that flower, so Jesus Christ is to me.”)
We are not be able to see or use all of the Lord’s truth, at one time, but as we put more and more of His teaching into practice, we will see and understand, more and more of His truth. God’s truth is clear, but our ability to understand it is imperfect…As we obey Him, our vision will be sharpened and our understanding will be increased…The more responsibility we take on, the more we are able to bear, the more decisions we compel ourselves to take, the better we are able to take them----Again and again in His parables, Jesus makes it clear, that the reward of good work is more work to do----the more we have won, the more we can win----the more we receive---the more we will receive….to whom much is given, much is required…Luke 12:48.
III. Alone With Jesus Mark 4:33-34
I’m a storyteller in the way that I teach----I love illustrations and examples----that’s why I love the fact that storytelling was such an integral part of Jesus teaching----He told stories; He used metaphors; He drew parallels from the fields, the sky, the sea, the kitchen, the highways and the bi-ways; and the marketplace-----Jesus knew how much help we would need, not just to understand, but to be able to apply what we know to be true.
God always reveals His truth, clearly, to those who seek Him, but we need to be careful to remember, that those who turn away from Him, will find out that even the truth, that they thought they had and understood, will disappear.
Sin has so thoroughly blinded our minds, corrupted our hearts and weakened our wills, that the Lord knows that we can only take in a little bit of truth, at a time----Just like a child has to learn how to count, then do simple arithmetic, then move on to fractions and long division, before he can go on to algebra, trigonometry and calculus----the Lord has to, first teach us the basics of spiritual truths, and then build on them, by adding truth to them------and even with those, the disciples were slow on the uptake and so are we------ the Lord is so patient with us, I marvel that He will go back to the beginning with us, as many times as we need Him to.
The Lord performed countless miracles, but only about 3 dozen of them are recorded in the Gospels----He told countless parables, but not all of them were written down----but enough of both have been recorded that make us marvel at his wisdom and His words---Mark said that He never taught without using illustrations----and He often would explain His teaching to His disciples in more detail, when they were alone.
The picture that we’re getting of Jesus is of a teacher extraordinaire----one who would change his method if his students weren’t listening or weren’t grasping what He wanted the to understand----He was a teacher who never compromised the truth for any reason, and made it available to anyone who wanted to listen----He was willing to stop at any time, in any situation, when a teachable moment presented itself---- He was willing to go to any extreme, if it meant one more person could hear----and His patience was bottomless----not just with repeating Himself over and over again, but no rest and no meals and inconsistent understanding -----And the sweetest thing is, that Jesus would draw away from the crowd and answer any questions the disciples had. With Him ---- nothing went unexplained or unanswered. And He will still do the same thing for us today----when we seek Him with all our hearts, He will be found, and He will answer every question, clear up every misunderstanding, and make sure that the peace in our hearts, is filled to the overflow…He won’t leave until we do…
(There once was a peddler going door to door------the owner of the house answered the door and said----it’s a good day to be saved, isn’t it ---the peddler answered, ”I know something that is better.” “Better than being saved?” the man said----yes, the peddler said----“what could possible be better than being saved?” asked the man. “The companionship of the one who saved me,” was the astonishing and unexpected reply. “
Souls often grow lonely in a crowd----and starve in the middle of church services, worshipers and traditions. The Lord wants to be alone with us every day. Going to church is not the same thing as coming to Jesus. Matt. 6:6 says, “enter into your closet to pray… and shut the door.” Shut out business, care and pleasure; shut out flattery and frowns; shut out strangers and acquaintances; shut out friends and enemies; shut out this world and open a window that looks out on the next one. Give the mind rest, give the ear quiet, give the tongue silence, give the heart meditation, give the soul communion with the Lord----look up---there are blessings waiting for you; listen, God speaks in His still small voice; ask, because God is waiting to answer. See that you soul is at peace with the Father---see that no hint of sin hides you from His face. Settle the question of peace, pardon and duty, in secret, before the Lord----then bring everything that concerns your heart and life, for time or for eternity, and lay it before the mercy seat----and rest in the presence of God.)
