Biblestudy: Matthew (Part Eighteen)

Matthew 12:38-13:32
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John W. Ritenbaugh (1932-2023)
Given 03-Feb-82; 80 minutes

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Let us go back into the book of Matthew to the 12th chapter. Right where we left off, beginning at verse 38.

Matthew 12:38-42 Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered, saying, "Teacher, we want to see a sign from You." But He answered and said to them, "An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and indeed a greater than Jonah is here. The queen of the South will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear he wisdom of Solomon; and indeed a greater than Solomon is here.”

It says back here in verse 38 that the Jews were seeking after a sign. Well, the apostle Paul said pretty much the same thing back in I Corinthians 1.

I Corinthians 1:21-22 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through [its] wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom.

I think what he is saying here is that he did not expect the Jews to respond promptly to the preaching, because they were looking for something spectacular, something extraordinary to be done in order to grab their attention. And so they would tend to disregard what the man said, that is the foolishness of preaching.

The Greeks on the other hand, would certainly listen to somebody speaking, but apparently somebody preaching was a little bit different. Remember in Acts 17 whenever Paul preached to those people on Mars Hill, that a number of them called him foolish—this crazy person who was there preaching.

But I want to focus in on the Jews requiring signs, because I think that is something common to all of us. Perhaps it is part of our expectation because of the things that we read in the New Testament regarding the miracles that Jesus did. It just seems as though the pages are full of the times that He healed somebody spectacularly, and it says that He healed everyone that came to Him. And so our expectation is that at any moment we are going to see some kind of a miracle from a representative of God.

Now, I want you to go back to Deuteronomy the 13th chapter. This is something that the Jews should have been familiar with and I hope that you are familiar with it too. And I hope that your faith is not being built upon the expectation of miracles or signs.

Deuteronomy 13:1-5 "If there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and he gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes to pass, of which he spoke to you, saying, 'Let us go after other gods'—which you have not known—‘and let us serve them,' you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the LORD your God is testing you to know whether you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. You shall walk after the LORD your God and fear Him, and keep His commandments and obey His voice; you shall serve Him and hold fast to Him. But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has spoken in order to turn you away from the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of bondage.”

A warning—very plain, very blunt.

Just because a person is able to do signs does not mean that He is a minister of God, a representative of God at all. But rather what God says that we ought to focus in on what does he preach about? Is he preaching that you should keep God's commandments? Or is he preaching some kind of a doctrine that is going to take you away from the keeping of God's commandments?

So, you have two men. The one says that you should keep the commandments. The other one says things that are subtly opposed to that, but nonetheless does miracles. Now, the natural inclination is to be attracted to the person who does something that one can see—there is an immediate result, an effect—somebody appears to be healed. That would be very attractive. But do not base your faith on it, because God warns that what is more important is what does he say?

The Jews apparently could have been very easily misled by someone who came along doing signs and wonders, because they were looking for God to do something extraordinary.

Now, as I said, I think that we are somewhat looking for that same thing. We are looking for God to do something extraordinary—that somehow, like in the last half of the ninth inning, He is going to pull our chestnuts out of the fire, and we do not have to go through some kind of difficulty.

Let us go back to Matthew again. And while you are turning there to Matthew 12, I want you to think of the verses that I know that you are familiar with found in II Thessalonians 2. How that the false prophet is going to be doing signs, miracles; how that it says in Revelation 13, again speaking of the false prophet, the little horn is going to be doing signs and lying wonders so that fire comes down out of heaven—extraordinary things. Remember how it says in Matthew 7, verse 21 about how the people came to Jesus and said, “Look at all the miracles and the demons that we have cast out in Your name.” And Jesus says, “Depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!”

The warning is very clear, that we should not look for signs; that we should not look for miracles. I showed you when we went through this earlier, that chapter that had a great deal to say about John the Baptist, and John did no miracles. There is no record of him healing anybody. There is no record of him calling fire down out of heaven. There is no record of him doing anything extraordinary, except his preaching. And that was extraordinary enough. And that is what we ought to be focusing in on—the Word of God. Not signs, not miracles.

Just because a person does not get healed, even though they have been anointed, even though they have had hands laid on them, is no proof that that person does not have faith; is no proof that God is not working in that person's life. Because indeed, He may be allowing that person to continue in that state for a while for a purpose that He has in mind that is far greater than the healing that could be accomplished, and also so easily forgotten.

So He is giving this in Matthew 12:38 as a warning—that if you are looking for God to do the extraordinary, you are going off in the wrong direction, especially in terms of the life of Christ. Through Jesus Christ, God gave man a very strong picture of how God would live were He a man—in ordinary, normal everyday situations. He kept the commandments. He educated people. He did good for people. And certainly, all those things are to be copied by us with the strength that God gives to us.

He goes on to say, He says, “I will give you a sign, and the sign is going to be the length of time that I am going to be in the tomb.” And so that is the sign of whether Jesus is our Savior—even as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so would Christ be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

So even though he gave them a sign, they had to wait until He was dead before the sign came to pass. But at any rate, that was the sign to them. And it is, of course, then the sign to you and me that God indeed raised Jesus Christ, and He was our Savior and is our Savior.

Now in verses 41 and 42 is a very interesting statement, that I believe, we must be the only church on earth that understands. I have never read in any commentary that I have perused in any way that gave any indication that they understood that they shall rise in the judgment, or as verse 42 said, shall rise up in the judgment. Every commentary that I have ever read says that is talking about what we would consider the third resurrection, and that these people are going to be resurrected in order to be put to death, to be judged, and then immediately put to death.

But we understand about the second resurrection, and the people being resurrected for the purpose of eternal judgment. Let us go back there to Revelation 20, and just very briefly review that second resurrection.

Revelation 20:4 And I saw thrones, and they sat on them . . .

Revelation 20:5 But the rest of the dead did not live again until the thousand years were finished. This is [verse 4] the first resurrection.

Revelation 20:11-12 Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. And there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened [the books of the Bible]. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books [the Bible].

They had never been judged before in the biblical sense.

You can jot down I Peter 4:17 in your notes, because there Peter said, “For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God.”

You and I are being judged. And, we are being judged according to our works; according to the things that are written in the books, the same as these people will be; that even as we are given an opportunity to be judged over a long period of time, so also will these people be judged—those people who will come up in the judgment that is mentioned in Matthew 12:41-42.

In Matthew 12:41-42, Jesus is saying that the men of Nineveh (who lived several hundred years before the generation that He was speaking to) are going to be rising at exactly the same time as the generation to whom Jesus was speaking. It also says in verse 42 that the Queen of the South, who must have been Sheba, who came to see Solomon (and that would have been sometime around 950 BC, or about 1,000 years before Christ) would be rising at the same time as the people to whom Jesus was speaking to.

So we have these people from various periods of time. Jonah spoke at roughly (I am just going to say a ballpark figure) about 750 BC or in that general area. So then we have people here from 950 BC, 700 to 750 BC, and people from the time of Christ, which would have been about 30 AD or so, they are all going to be resurrected at the same time for judgment. That is the second resurrection.

Can you remember last week, I told you that during the 12th chapter, one of Jesus' ways of meeting the persecution that was coming on Him was to make some claims. Well, here are two of the claims: One in verse 41—that He is greater than Jonah. That was a fine comparison, because Jonah is the only prophet that is shown in the Old Testament used of God to affect the repentance of an entire city, and possibly an entire nation. The city was Nineveh, the nation was Assyria. No other prophet had done that! So, that was pretty good comparison.

Then He was greater (verse 42) than Solomon. And Solomon of course, was noted for his wisdom. Jesus was saying, “I have more wisdom than Solomon; a greater than Solomon is here”—another great comparison.

So He is making some pretty pretentious claims as we go along here.

Matthew 12:43-45 "When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none. Then he says, 'I will return to my house from which I came.' And when he comes, he finds it empty, swept, and put in order. Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first. So shall it also be with this wicked generation."

There is a bit of excellent teaching there. First of all, the demon is cast out. However, the demon is not destroyed. So the demon does what? Well, he counterattacks. And he comes back with more than he left.

What Jesus is concerned about here is the state of the mind of the person from whom the demon is cast. If the demon or the influence of a demon is cast out of the person, if the mind is left in the state that it was in after the demon is cast out, and nothing is done to strengthen the mind, when the demon comes back, the mind is defenseless and he finds, “Hey, there’s room not only for me but seven other guys.” And so as he says, the latter end is worse than the first.

Now let us learn something:

First of all, Satan will always counterattack. Let me give you the example of Job. God said to Satan, go ahead test My servant Job and see what you can do there. So Job was tested by Satan, but Job did not crack. And so, the evil influence (we can put it that way) left Job for a while, went back to God, and said, “Give me another crack at him!” And so he came back [at Job] again, but Job did not crack again either. The second time, he did not crack, even when his family was taken away.

Now let me ask you something: Do you think that when you pray to God, and ask Him to remove some kind of an influence from you—maybe you feel that sometimes at night time you are being bothered by a demon, your sleep is being disturbed, you are receiving some kind of threat, or whatever you might say in your mind while you are asleep, or maybe just about to go to sleep, or whatever; and so you ask God to take that thing away. And so He does, because God is faithful.

Do you stop praying about it? Or do you continue to pray about it, and ask God to continue to keep it away? I think you better do that, because this teaching here is showing us that they are going to come back. You ask God to give you the help you need for something; it is not an all-the-time thing. You have to understand we are in warfare. And the enemy that we have is implacable. He does not give up. He will keep coming back again and again. And our guard always has to be up. You cannot go to sleep in this war that Satan is waging against us. And so, that is really the thrust of the teaching, here.

Now, what can we do to ensure that we will be strong enough to repulse the attack of the enemy, so that our latter end is not worse than the beginning?

Here is a principle that is very important.

Let me explain it this way: A drunkard may reform. But just because he says, “Now, I’m going to stop drinking,” that does not stop his desire to drink. Any of you who have smoked know that. The chances are extremely great that if you ever smoke, and you say, “I’m going to quit smoking,” and so you throw your cigarettes away, just because you have gotten rid of the cigarettes, does not end the impulse to smoke, does it?

What has to be done in order to resist that impulse? See, something good has to be done to replace the evil that was gotten rid of; something must be substituted to fill the void, is another way of putting it.

Now, exactly what that might be in your case, I do not know. But you have got to understand this principle. It is not good enough just to stop doing something, there has to be positive action taken to replace the evil that was done with a good habit. So evil has to be replaced with good.

If you are doing good, then you will not give place to evil, you are going to be exceedingly stronger. And so when the demon or the other influence, whatever it might be, comes back to attack you, you will be armed enough to be able to resist.

Notice what Jesus said here, “Then,” He says, “I will return to my house [which was the mind of the person] from which I came.” And when he comes, he finds it empty, swept, and put in order.” You see, nothing was done to replace the evil with good. Now, that is the key. The emphasis is not so much on stopping evil as it is on doing good. Certainly, that is part of the process. But the important thing is to do good, and then the evil will be stopped in its tracks.

Matthew 12:46-50 While He was still talking to the multitudes, behold, His mother and brothers stood outside, seeking to speak with Him. Then one said to Him, "Look, Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside, seeking to speak with You." But He answered and said to the one who told Him, "Who is My mother and who are My brothers?" And He stretched out His hand toward His disciples and said, "Here are My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother."

Now you might think that was kind of a heartless and cruel statement. But I think that Jesus took every opportunity He could to teach us some very valuable lessons.

Let us go back to John 7, verse 5. This is the chapter that Jesus eventually, during the course of it, went and kept the Feast of Tabernacles. At the beginning, there was a bit of byplay between Himself and His brothers. And He told them to go ahead on up.

In verse 5 is an interesting statement,

John 7:5 For even His brothers did not believe in Him.

Now, Jesus own brothers had rejected Him, at least as maybe, I do not mean as a physical brother, but I mean, they had rejected Him as far as His claims were concerned, even though they grew up with Him within the same family. And I am sure that they recognized Him as an exceedingly intelligent individual. Maybe they even recognized that He was somebody that was head and shoulders above them when it came to anything in which they were involved in. But at any rate, at least spiritually, they rejected Him.

Look at another piece of evidence in Mark 3, verse 21. He is in Capernaum, or Nazareth. I am not real sure exactly where it was, but at any rate it says:

Mark 3:21 But when His own people heard about this . . .

That is, when they heard of the works that He was doing. My Bible has a marginal reference of kinsman. So these were His relatives, maybe his brothers, sisters, mother, father (if he was alive), and cousins.

Mark 3:21 But when His own people heard about this, they went out to lay hold of Him, for they said, "He is out of His mind."

“He’s crazy. He’s gone loony. He’s out of His mind, out of His tree. Who does He think He is? He’s just a carpenter. He’s my brother.” Or “He’s my cousin.”

Now, I know that most of you have experienced, at least some of this, that your relatives think that you are crazy. And if they do not think you are crazy now, they thought you were crazy at some time during the course of your conversion. They thought you were loony when you stopped keeping Christmas and Easter, and other things as well, started keeping the Sabbath.

I wanted to show you that, because sometimes we think Jesus did not experience things like we do. His family rejected Him, and they thought He was looney too. They probably thought he was throwing away His life. I mean, a guy as talented as He was ought to be in a building business. He ought to be a contractor. See, making a lot of money building buildings, maybe building synagogues, or surely making a lot of money. They, I am sure, felt anybody that intelligent with that much ability should not become an itinerant preacher. I am sure they thought He was throwing His life away.

There is some valuable teaching here for you and me. Look at that last verse in the chapter.

Matthew 12:49-50 And He stretched out His hand toward His disciples and said, "Here are My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother."

He says, who are My mothers and My brothers? Well, He says, whoever does the will of My Father. Now, let us think about that for just a second. This doing the will of God will be kind of in the background. But I want to take you to something else: The kind of friendship and fellowship that we have; the kind that is, you know, the brother/sister relationship within the family of God. What is it based on? In fact, what is any family relationship or close relationship based on?

Well, I can see at least two factors besides this one that was just mentioned. Number one is this: People who are going to have the kind of friendship that Jesus expects of us, have to have a common ideal. By that, I mean, we have the same purposes, we are after the same goal, and we have the same standards that we hold near and dear. Now, that is very important because differences tend to divide.

Now you can see that almost anywhere in the world. Obvious example: The Russians, I do not know how many of them, but at least the Russian ruling class believes in a socialistic form of government. Their ideals are different than Western democracies. Now do those differences make us friends? No, everywhere in every part of this globe, we are competing with one another as enemies. And we would like our governmental system to be the governmental system that everybody is governed by, so that everybody would have the same standards, and everybody would have the same ideals. And then the whole world would have democracy in common. You see, we do not believe the same way as the Russians, and so we cannot get together with them. We hold different ideals.

We hold different ideals than people in Africa, in South America, and in the Far East; in a whole multitude of areas. (I am talking about “we” being the United States.) And these differences in ideals keep us apart because we tend to walk to the beat of a different drummer. So, if you are going to have any kind of togetherness in a family, a fellowship, or a friendship, you had better have the same ideals, or you are going to divorce.

You know what Amos 3:3 says? “Can two walk together, unless they are agreed?” See? So I know that principle is right. You have got to have common ideals or you cannot have a fellowship.

The second thing you have to have is common experiences. When you pass through something together, it has a tendency to bind together. I do not know how many of you have been to a high school reunion. I have been to one. When you get together, what do you talk about? Well, you will probably talk about your babies, or your grandchildren, and so forth; things like that. But you know what? It will not be very long before you will spend the bulk of the time talking about the things that you experienced with that group that you are holding the reunion with. Why? It is the only thing you have in common, really. And because you shared those experiences together, it has a tendency to bind you together even if ever so briefly during a reunion.

Now what does God want us to do? I mean, as a body of people. He wants us to experience as much as we possibly can together as a group within the Family.

You know, God is no fool. He knows that common experiences, combined with a common ideal, is going to bind people very tightly together into a very warm loving friendship.

Now, when we throw in the last item, that is the one that really binds together, it says, “He who does the will of My Father, he is My brother, My sister, and My mother.”

I will show you another verse where Jesus said the same thing in a little bit different way.

John 15:14 “You are My friends if you do whatever I command you.”

You see, if we are all striving to do the will of God, we are going to have that common ideal, because the law of God is going to set the ideal for everything. And so if everybody is thinking about the same ideals that they are trying to meet, then what? Everybody is going to have experiences that are almost exactly alike, maybe not at the same time, but in our lifetime, we are going to cross basically the same experiences. And then, we are going to have a lot of experiences together, because we are keeping the commandments, we keep the Sabbath; because we are keeping the commandments, we keep the holy days; we go to the Feast together, do we not? We have lots of experiences together.

Why? Because we invite one another to our homes. We talk. What do we talk about? We talk about the things we have in common. You see, that is how you really become a brother of Jesus Christ. I mean, apart from the repentance, the baptism, and the receiving of God's Holy Spirit, you have got to have experience with the Family of God in order to bind yourself to it. It is really wonderful teaching. And when you do that, then you become truly Christ's brother.

One last thing. I wrote myself a note here: True kinship is not a matter of flesh and blood, because when once God begins to call you, what takes place? Your ideals begin to change. And they become different from your own flesh and blood brothers, do they not? And once you begin to obey those ideals, you begin to have experiences that are different than theirs. They are experiences that you have in common with others who are not your flesh and blood, but who are also having the same experiences.

So you see the kinship that Jesus is talking about here is not based on flesh and blood at all, because your own flesh and blood may not share common ideals and experiences in doing the will of God. That is why you can actually feel much closer to your brethren in the church, than you can your own flesh and blood brothers. In reality, you are closer to them.

Now, chapter 13. We are going to be jumping all over this chapter because of the way that it is written. So, I am going to read the first nine verses because that is the beginning and end of the parable.

Matthew 13:1-9 On the same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the sea. And great multitudes were gathered together to Him, so that He got into a boat and sat; and the whole multitude stood on the shore. Then He spoke many things to them in parables, saying: "Behold, a sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds came and devoured them. Some fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth, and they immediately sprang up; because they had no depth of earth, when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered away. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them. But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!"

Now, jump all the way down to verse 18, and we will get Jesus’ explanation of the parable:

Matthew 13:18-23 "Therefore hear the parable of the sower: When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is he who received seed by the wayside. But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles. Now he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful. But he who received seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty."

This parable is aimed at two groups of people. We will consider each one separately. The first is anyone who hears the Word, verse 18, “Therefore hear the parable of the sower: When anyone hears the word of the kingdom.” So it is directed to anyone that hears.

What does He mean by the word of the Kingdom? This could further categorize to whom this is directed.

He could mean the gospel in terms of hearing the good news, let us say, as it is preached by God's apostle, or hearing the good word as it is preached by Jesus. That is one category. It could also mean us, those who have responded to the original call of God, and have progressed further to conversion, because the Word of God has never stopped being preached to us. We are hearing it every Sabbath, every Bible study. And we could even extend that even into our own private study, when we are hearing the Word of God through our study. It is aimed at anybody.

Now, we have different ways, or different degrees, of comprehension, and therefore response. I will give you an example. Did you ever know anybody who was practically humorless? You could tell them a joke that was so funny that when you heard it, you practically fell down laughing about it. You told the same joke, maybe in the same type of circumstance, and it was so funny to you again the second time, that you could hardly get the joke out for your own laughing. But this person that you were telling it to hardly even cracked a smile. Why? Well, it is obvious that the humorless person, his mind just was not tuned in. Maybe the person did not have a funny bone at all. There are some people like that. They just do not seem to get it. They seem to see things differently.

Now, it is this principle that is at work.

Let us look a little bit closer. The first group that is addressed here, the one where the birds come and snatch away the seed, are people with closed minds. Now, why are their minds closed? Well, as often as not, they are prejudiced about something. Maybe they just have an unteachable spirit; they do not even want to learn; they do not care; their minds are shut.

Sometimes the people do hear, but maybe because of a weakness in a certain area—an immoral character—they will shut it out. For example, if some man has a weakness for the ladies, and he just loves to commit fornication, if somebody gets up and preaches to him about fornication, and they are stepping on his toes all over the place, what is he most likely to do? Just shut his mind. It will go in one ear and out the other.

You see, there is something in the mind that is saying, “Reject! Reject!” And so it does not even penetrate.

The second group of people. These are the ones where it fell on stony places. Now, what kind of mind is that? They try to tear it apart in a positive way; put it back together; think of applications to self, and to others; think of anything, let us say, about counting the cost; and then just accept.

Now, often this is really an indicator, not of any kind of a bad spirit in any way, but of immaturity. This is the way children are. “Hey, mom and dad! Boy, I want to learn how to play the piano! Buy me a banjo! Buy me a guitar!” or something. And so they appeal to you. They are real enthusiastic about it, and you give in, and you go out and buy them a guitar. Boy, for about a month, they are all fired up, getting the lessons, practicing, and really getting with it.

Then what happens? Gradually, the enthusiasm wanes, and other things begin to become more important, more exciting. And the first thing, you know, the guitar is in a corner gathering dust. What has happened to all the enthusiasm?

There was no real resolve to carry through with it. It was only an idea that was shallowly planted in there, and they were gung-ho about it for a little while. And the first thing you know, it was gone.

This is what He is talking about here. The Word of God settles in the person's mind. It takes root. They are enthusiastic about it, until they begin to recognize, “Hey, this is a lot of hard work! There is a responsibility connected with this thing! These people are serious about this! You mean, I have got to tithe my money? Keep the Sabbath from sundown to sunset?”

You see, what happens is, after the enthusiasm wanes, and they begin to really count the cost, what happens? There is not enough strength there to endure. And so they walk away from it. So these are people who are shallow minded. That is why Jesus said in Luke 14:26-28, you better count the cost.

The next group is where the seed fell amongst all of the weeds and such, these are people with so many interests that the important things are crowded out. In this case, the interests are not necessarily designated by Jesus as being evil. Some of them may be, but it is not to be assumed that they are. They are just simply things that might be part and parcel of a person's life—the job, the home, things like that, a hobby, which I am sure God is not against. But they crowd out things that are more important. And so these people fail to properly prioritize, so that even things that would normally be considered good, crowd out that which is better.

Now, what it tends to crowd out is communication with God—study of His Word, prayer, fasting, and meditation. Those things begin to be shoved into the background. Then maybe the job takes priority, so that the person is putting in far more hours than are really necessary. That is not an evil thing to have a job and to earn money. But if the job is taking one away from God, then that is not good. Everybody needs rest and relaxation. But if one gets too much of it at the expense of other things, the rest and relaxation, which is not evil, becomes something that is prioritized above that which is better, and it begins to crowd it out. You see what I mean?

Certainly, God intends that we have homes; that they be well kept, be neat. But you know we can go above and beyond what is really necessary, or maybe we ought to consider even getting a place that is smaller, and easier kept, so that we do not have to spend so much time doing those things. And so, something that would normally be considered good, begins to crowd out that which is better.

I know people that have sacrificed so much of their time serving the brethren in God's church, that they did not have any time for their own families. And if they did not have time for their family, they did not have time for God either. They did not have time to pray, to study, and to do those other things that God would require of us, and it destroyed them spiritually. I know ministers who did that. They spent so much time out on the road visiting, that their own family falls apart. That is not right. What kind of an example is that?

Now, that is what He is getting at here. You see, where the cares of life superimpose themselves on our spiritual responsibilities, and crowd them out.

And then finally, the fourth one is the open-minded person; the person who is willing to listen, and he understands, he becomes deeply rooted, he puts it into action, and it produces fruit.

There is no time element here. God is not saying how long it takes. He is only saying that the good fruit or the good mind that thinks things through, properly prioritizes, that person is going to produce fruit.

The first group of people that this parable is aimed at is the hearers of the Word. And so that includes all of us. The second group is a little bit more specific, because I feel that it is aimed more at the ministry, especially verses 22 and 23. And I think that Jesus gave it at least partly to allay discouragement. He does that by showing that the harvest is absolutely sure. I do not know whether there is anything more discouraging for a minister than to feel as though he is beating his head against the wall; that he is spinning his wheels. That what he is saying is not taking root; that he is not able to see very much progress; as though all of the efforts that he is making seems to be going for naught. That maybe he does not see the growth; maybe a lack of appreciation, or whatever, and that can get very discouraging. And so what Jesus is doing here is showing the ministry to keep firing away because it will work, it will produce.

Now look, He used the example of a farmer sowing seeds. Think of this just logically. We have got people who farm. You know what? There is not any farmer that expects every seed to germinate. You throw a bunch of seeds out, and you are pretty sure that not every one is going to come up. That is a fact of life. I have bought many a package of seed. You turn it around and look on the back and down on the bottom, what does it say? It says germination rate 80%, 90% or whatever. They are telling you right up front not every seed you have got here is going to germinate and become a plant, right?

So what He is saying is, why should we think that everything that we put out is going to be accepted, take root, and produce fruit? So what does the farmer do? The farmer is in a great position to learn elements of faith. Every time he puts a seed in the ground, he has to believe that that thing is going to come up. And of course, he puts trust in God's laws that is going to going to occur. So the farmer sows his seed in faith and hope. He never knows exactly which seed is going to germinate and which seed will not. So he has to do that every time. Good lesson.

The second thing a farmer has to learn is not to look for quick results. You know, a farmer does not put a kernel of corn in the ground, walk two steps, turn around and find a fully developed stock with corn on it already. It does not happen that way does. It takes 90, 100, 120 days before that corn is mature enough. And so he sows in faith, and hope, and he knows that there is going to be a period of time between the sowing and the reaping. And so he expects that it will be that way.

So when we look at nature, haste does not seem to be nature's way of doing things. But rather we see a long progression of time in most cases. Look how long it is between the time that an acorn, for instance, is planted and that the oak tree finally gets mature enough to produce acorns. Many, many years go by before that occurs. Even with an ordinary fruit tree, what is it? It must be at least six or seven years from the time they germinate to the time they begin to produce any fruit at all. And even the first fruit you get is not going to be too good. It is not going to be till that tree is about nine or 10 years old that it finally begins to put out a good product.

Now, you see a minister has to learn to deal with this. When I think of myself, I realize that there are times when the light bulb goes off in my mind, and I understand something that I heard years before. “Oh, is that what he meant?” But it is not until I understand it that I can really make use of it, and then maybe some fruit can be produced.

Thinking back on it, I probably gave Mr. Friddle some heartache here and there, because he expected me to grow faster than I did. So that is something that is really a comfort to know, that I do not have to worry, even though I do. I do not have to get discouraged, but I do. But I know that fruit is going to be produced, because God promised them, and He does not go back on His promises.

Back to verse 10.

Matthew 13:10-17 And the disciples came and said to Him, "Why do You speak to them in parables?" He answered and said to them, "Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says: 'Hearing you will hear and shall not understand, and seeing you will see and not perceive; for the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, so that I should heal them.' But blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear; for assuredly, I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.”

Let us jump over to verse 34:

Matthew 13:34-35 All these things Jesus spoke to the multitude in parables; and without a parable He did not speak to them, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying: "I will open My mouth in parables; I will utter things kept secret from the foundation of the world."

Back to verses 10 and 11.

First of all, the word “mysteries.” Now a mystery to you and me normally means something that is dark and difficult; hard to understand. But in the biblical sense, it does not mean anything like that at all. In the biblical sense, a mystery is a truth that can be understood only through divine revelation. Notice in verse 11, “It has been given to you to know the mysteries. . .” They have been revealed, they were revealed to the disciples, and they have been revealed to you and me. That does not mean that we know all of them. And it does not mean that we do not understand thoroughly all of them, but we do know enough to understand God's purpose and plan; what He is doing; and what we should be doing with our lives.

We understand the major doctrines listed there in Hebrews 6; we know many things besides that; we understand the spirit of God's law, and on and on. These things have had to be revealed to you and me.

Now there is something here that is important to understand. Maybe it will help you to deal with your unconverted friends and relatives. That means, then, that since a mystery must be revealed, therefore Christianity is to be understood only from the inside out. That is, those on the outside cannot possibly understand. You are in the know, they are not. Therefore any criticism that comes from the outside is criticism that comes from ignorance, because the mysteries have not been revealed. If they cannot understand, what else can they do but attack or to ridicule or to persecute?

Matthew 13:12 “For whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.”

At first, what He says there almost appears to be true, because I think that we naturally have a tendency to be for the underdog. But that is not right.

Who is God for? He is for the person who is right. You see, whether they are the underdog or not, He is for the person who is right. A lot of underdogs are wrong. Our feelings can mislead us.

Now, “Whoever has, to him more will be given.” Is this not the “rich get richer, and the poor get poorer?” “Whoever has not, even what he has will be taken from him.” Do you know that is a living principle? It is not only a law by which this world seems to operate, it is also a law by which God operates. Do you find that cruel, that the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer? I will tell you, it is not when you understand how it works.

What is He talking about here? Notice that He just said that the mysteries had been revealed to us. Then all of a sudden He starts talking about, “whoever has to him more will be given, . . . but whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away.” He is saying, “Look, develop your understanding of those things. Use the knowledge that you are given. The more that you understand, and the more that you use, the more that God is going to reveal, and He is going to keep on adding to what you have; layer upon layer. He is going to add to your character, to your understanding, to your wisdom, if you would just use what He has already given. But if you do not use what He has given, what is He going to do? He is going to take it away.

It is the same principle that I was talking about last week, only it is put in a different context with slightly different words. And that is this: If God gives a gift by His Spirit, whether it be the gift of faith, of love, of a physical gift, of the ability to speak as He gives the ministry, ability to sing; those things have to be developed. You do not become an effective speaker overnight. Anybody who speaks in Spokesman's Club knows that it takes a great deal of practice. It takes some guts. You have got to put yourself out to stand up in front of a bunch of people, and spill your guts out, and look stupid while you are doing it half the time. But you see all the while it is being developed. Just like learning how to ice skate. If you never get on the skates, you never learn how to ice skate. And the more you practice it, the better you become.

If God gives you an ability, and you never use it, or you develop it a little bit, what is going to happen to it? It is going to dissipate away. That is the principle that is involved here.

Just like I told you last week, I learned Spanish when I was in high school. Two years of it. I had a pretty good size vocabulary. I could speak it reasonably well. I could read it very well. I understood the grammar. I have not spoken it now for 30 years. All I know now is about 50 words. It is just dissipated away. It is gone. See, whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away. If I do not try to develop that ability that I had at one time, it will not be long before Ritenbaugh will only know five Spanish words. Three of them I will probably never forget: Gracias, adios, and things like that.

You see the principle? That is a living principle. That is the way it is in the world. You get a salesman who is a crackerjack salesman. What happens? His pay keeps increasing, because he works at it. He is using his gift. He has got a good product; that man becomes in demand. His reputation begins to spread around, and others want him to work for him. You see? Him who has gifts.

You have another salesman selling the same product, does not use his gifts and abilities, nobody wants them; his pay diminishes. He is fired. Taken away.

Understand: This is a living principle. You are dealing with it every day. It is not cruel at all. Even God uses it.

Then he goes on to show in verses 13-15. I do not want to go into this very deeply. Mr. Armstrong goes into it very much, but a careful reading of that will show that it was not that Jesus was necessarily trying to hide what He was preaching, because after all, did God not send Him to reveal the gospel? Certainly He did. Jesus was revealing.

Where was the flaw? Do you see? The flaw was in the people. The people had shut their eyes. Verse 15, “For the heart of this people have grown dull.” That is where the problem was. And “their ears are hard of hearing.” Jesus spoke plainly enough, “And their eyes they have closed.” God did not close them, they closed them, “Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears. . . . But blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear.” God has given us a tremendous gift. Our eyes were just as closed as these peoples’ were at one time. But God by His Spirit mercifully opened up your eyes by a miracle so that you could understand. So Jesus could speak to one group of people, and they would not understand; speak to another group and they would understand, because of the miracle that had taken place in their minds.

So the problem is with the people. I will give you a couple of other verses: Romans 10:21 and Luke 20:9-18. In Romans 10:21, Paul says very plainly that God states, “All the day long I have stretched out My hands to a disobedient and contrary people,” appealing to them, “Come on! Repent!” Now, does that sound like a God who is trying to hide? And in Luke 20:9-18 is the parable that shows how God is the husbandman who sent one prophet after another. And in each case, Israel rejected the prophet. And then finally, of course, He sent His Son. That does not sound to me like a God who is trying to hide things, but rather a people who reject. That is what has occurred.

And so Jesus spoke parables, and they did not understand them, because the flaw was in them.

Back to verse 24:

Matthew 13:24-30 Another parable He put forth to them, saying: "The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. So the servants of the owner came and said to him, 'Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?' He said to them, 'An enemy has done this.' The servants said to him, 'Do you want us then to go and gather them up?' But he said, 'No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, "First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn."'"

Then in verses 36 through 43 we have the explanation.

Matthew 13:37-40 He answered and said to them: "He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, the good seeds are the sons of the kingdom, but the tares are the sons of the wicked one. The enemy who sowed them is the devil, the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are the angels. Therefore as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of this age.”

Let us learn this very quickly. The tares here is a plant that we call darnel. And I honestly do not know whether it grows in the United States. If it does, I am not familiar with it.

However, you can look in dictionaries, and they will tell you about it, and they will tell you very plainly that you cannot tell the difference between a wheat plant and the darnel until they have fruited out at almost the time of harvest. Then at the time of harvest, the darnel, the tares, will suddenly turn gray. And of course, the wheat berry is a nut brown and so it is very easy then to tell the difference.

Now, you would think that maybe that would be a good time to rip up the plants, since you can see very plainly the difference between the two. But again, as these dictionaries will tell you, their roots become intertwined with the wheat roots. And so if you tear up one, you are going to tear up the other. So, the way they are normally separated is at the threshing stage. After the berries have been knocked off, and have been gathered together, they will generally pour them into a flat pan, like a great big pie pan, cookie sheet, or something like that. And then the gray berries from the darnel are very easily seen, and they pick them out one at a time, because they are not now attached to the plant.

It ought to be very clearly understood that God's church is going to be in the world, not part of the world, but in the world, at the same time that Satan and his counterfeit society and religion are springing up all around. And so Satan has been able to duplicate to a limited degree the fruits of God's Spirit in his people, through his counterfeit religion and through his spirit.

But at the end, it is going to be easy to tell the difference between the two. But until that time, apparently, we are not going to be able to tell a great deal of difference between us and them.

You know, there are an awful lot of good people out there. I do not mean good in terms of having God's Spirit, not good like that. But rather an awful lot of people who do an awful lot of kind, considerate works, sacrificing a tremendous amount of their time for the sake of people, and do it in a good spirit; willingly, sacrificially, or whatever. There are an awful lot of people who are good neighbors, nice people to have living beside you, who do not steal you blind, do not shoot you, do not commit adultery with your wife, do not do any of those things.

And I will tell you, in your neighborhood they look just as good as you do, do they not? Maybe they really are not, but they look good on the outside. Maybe on the inside, they are all torn up, and spiritually they are not well off.

Here are a couple of things we can learn very quickly: First of all, Satan deliberately sows false brethren. He is a hostile power seeking to destroy. And so he counterfeits the truth.

Now, if you read carefully the epistles of Paul, Peter, John, Jude, and James, you know very clearly that even false brethren are in the church on occasions, right? We just went through a period of time like that. And so you see Satan has the capability of putting them right in our midst.

The second thing is that it is hard to distinguish between the two. [Recapping]: Number one, Satan sows false brother; number two, it is hard to distinguish between the two. So a word of advice; be slow to judge. God is not going to judge us on a single act. Thank God for that. Sometimes we see people at a bad moment, and really maybe they are not that bad at all, so be slow to judge.

The parable also showed that there is a time of reckoning, and that God is the only One truly fit to judge. He through His angels does the separating.

Matthew 13:31-32 Another parable He put forth to them, saying: "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field, which indeed is the least of all the seeds; but when it is grown it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches."

This mustard is not quite the same as our mustard. It is a different variety, but it does grow apparently to a height of about 10 feet, pretty good size. And this statement that Jesus makes, I do not believe that He intended that it be taken literally. What He said there was an Eastern proverb. You know, we have things like that, clichés that people say. And they ordinarily used a mustard seed to indicate something that was tiny, or small. And so that was their proverb.

The point is a comparison that the Kingdom of God is going to begin with the very smallest of beginnings, and eventually, of course, grow out to something that is the largest of organization in God's creation.

So that is the point of the parable.

Again, it is another little bit of encouragement to you and to me, to admonish us not to be concerned about the smallness of our group. We are never in this age going to be as large as the Roman Catholic Church with their 500-600 million people. We are not going to get that large. We are not going to get as large as the Seventh Day Adventists. I believe they have got over a million people in their organization, whatever it is. We are not going to get that large. And yet we are a powerful organization, far out of proportion to our size; and we are doing a great work.

So what He is just admonishing. “Do not be concerned about being small, because you are going to grow.” There is no force in heaven and earth that can resist the growth that is taking place right now. And so that is what our future is going to be like.

Another way that we might look at this is that growth in individuals spiritually and physically takes place in very small increments, little by little. It is added on to until the person becomes mature. Another good lesson for us.

Let us go on to one more parable here:

Matthew 13:33 Another parable He spoke to them: "The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till it was all leavened."

You know very well that in most parts of the Bible, leaven is used as a symbol of evil. We get rid of it on the Days of Unleavened Bread because it symbolizes sin to us at that time. And so we learned the lesson that a little bit of sin that is put into something eventually transforms whatever it is put into. And of course, the lesson is with bread, and it changes a hard, flat bread into a nice fluffy, soft loaf of bread that is much more palatable than the hard bread.

Here Jesus used it in a good sense that the Kingdom of God is like leaven, and it, too, is going to be a very tiny portion of the mass into which it is put, but it is going to transform the entire mass. And so literally, the Kingdom of God is going to be established in Palestine. And it is going to start out as a small group of spirit beings there governing over the earth.

But eventually, you see, like leaven, it is going to spread out over the entire earth. And then God says in Isaiah 9:7, “Of the increase of His government there is no end.” So it is gradually going to leap out, and to take over the entire creation that God has made. And all the while that it is doing that, it is going to transform everything that gets in its path.

The Word of God, you see, as a leavening agent takes root in you and me, and it begins to transform our individual lives. Then, it begins to transform society at the right time. It is going to transform the environment on the earth, and then it is going to transform the entire universe, which as far as we are able to understand, is still in a chaotic and ruined condition as a result of the war between Satan and God.

That is the lesson here.

So do not get discouraged. No power in heaven and earth is able to resist the transforming power of God that is at work in you and me.

JWR/rwu/drm