Turn to Matthew 13. In Matthew 13, we are going to look at a passage that is familiar. And one of the reasons why I wanted to go here was, I listened to the debate between Mr. Camping and Dr. White recently. I prefer to call it a discussion, because I know that is the mindset of a believer, because the Bible tells us not to get into debates, and I am sure Mr. Camping, actually, definitely sure, because I heard he was not debating, he was just discussing the Scripture, and yet, others do look at it as a debate.
Well, the main theme of the whole debate was Biblical hermeneutics, or how do we understand the Bible, what is the proper way, the correct way of interpreting the Bible? And Dr. White did not agree with information that we find here in Matthew 13, that Christ spoke in “parables,” and without a “parable” He did not speak.
He brought up some ideas, and actually to some degree, they were facts that there are places in the Bible where Jesus does not speak in “parables.” And there are definitely places in the Bible as a whole, the Word of God, as Christ is the Word, where it is not a parabolic statement. And so, that got me thinking, about how we understand this. Let me read from Matthew 13, and we will think about it a little bit more. In Matthew 13, Jesus has already given a “parable,” and then in verses 10-12 it says:
And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables? He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.
By the way, that explains a lot, why there are some people that seem to be following along on the same path, they seem to be understanding the Bible pretty much evenly, but if an individual is not truly saved, not “born again,” if they do not have the Spirit of Christ within them, there is going to be a separation at some point, because they are going to hear things that they are not going to understand. That is just how it is, that is how God wrote the Bible, and actually you know a good way of looking at that, because some people get disturbed, “Wow, he does not understand this. In the last ten-fifteen years I thought I was having fellowship with that person, or those people, and now all of a sudden they have gone way off there.”
Well, a good way of looking at this is like two trains on a track, two trains on a track at the station, everyone gets on one train, and some others get on another train, and they are going the same direction, and so they are parallel. You look out the window, and there are your buddies, there are your friends all going the same direction, but the problem is originally they got on a different train, on a different track, and two trains can go the same direction for awhile. But at some point the tracks are going to bend, and the tracks are going to turn and there goes your friend.
See that is the key, that when God is opening up the understanding of His people they will “endure to the end,” they will endure “sound doctrine,” they will go all the way to the end in the doctrine of Christ. But no matter how hard someone might try to understand and to see things from the Bible, at some point, if they are not saved, there is going to be that separation, and they are going to go off in a different way. That is what Jesus is saying:
For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.
As some people did not agree with the “five months,” or did not understand the nature of judgment, that it is annihilation, and not eternal hell, and yet previously they seem to have all kinds of understanding. But I have run into people and discussed things with people, now they are checking all these other things. Is there a Biblical calendar? Does God give us that? They are going off, whatever truths they did know for a period of time they are losing, some are even looking at the church as a possibility again. Of course you can see why, they are all alone. They came out of the church, they left the church and then for awhile they were following along in agreement with the doctrines that we are learning and they were listening to faithful teaching from Family Radio, but then annihilation really hit them in their pride, or not understanding that the nature of Christ’s death, that is another one that is very hard to take, very humbling. And so they find themselves not in agreement with the church, and not in agreement with teachings they are hearing, and it is very isolating, and so naturally they are looking again. They are really fooling themselves, they are telling themselves, “With an open mind I am going to look at these things again,” but really, they just want some company, they just want some company. They feel very isolated and very alone.
Well, the true believer of course is never alone because we have God with us, and He is all the child of God needs. But if someone is not a true believer and they get into that trouble. Verses 13-16 continues:
Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias [or Isaiah], which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive: For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear.
And Jesus is speaking to all people here, especially those in the churches and congregations; they are “hearing” but “they hear not.” They have the Bible week after week, but they do not hear it. They “see” the Scriptures, but they “see not,” not spiritually, they are not understanding properly what the Bible teaches.
Well, in this passage that we just read, we can learn that God did not give us “parables” to make the Bible easier to understand, or that Jesus did not speak in “parables” in order to make the Bible easier to understand, or to make His point easier to comprehend. He is saying, no I speak this way because, seeing they will not see, and hearing they will not hear. So He gives these “parables,” and all kinds of people do not get it, they do not understand what He is saying. And that is the very purpose that God spoke in “parables.” The Bible is not an easy book to understand, it is very complex, it is very difficult, and especially “parables.” I can think of one or two “parables” that we really do not know today after nearly two thousand years that Jesus gave the “parable,” we still do not have a very good or complete understanding of the “parable” because God is using that method of speech, parabolic language, to hide truth. That is the nature of “parables.” That is why it is so important.
A little further on in Matthew 13:33:
Another parable spake he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.
So there is a short one sentence “parable” that Christ has given, and it is teaching a truth, it is teaching a truth. And then in verse 34:
All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude in parables; and without a parable spake he not unto them:
Now Jesus is the Word, “(in the volume of the book it is written of me),” we find in Hebrews. Yet in His own ministry while He was on earth, when He was sharing the Gospel He spoke in “parables” in order to hide truth and to teach His people, especially but to teach His people, this is the nature of the Bible, this is the character of the Bible. And that is why Jesus being the Word spoke in “parables” and it says, without a “parable” he did not speak.
Now the question is, how can we understand that? Because we go to this verse in order to tell someone, see that is how you have to understand the whole Bible. You have to understand the whole Bible is a “parable,” and then they can go Romans 5:1, it says:
Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:
Now, that is just an example verse, there are many like it. Is that verse a “parable”? If you said to someone that Christ is the Word, and He spoke in “parables” and without a “parable” He did not speak, and you are really saying the whole Bible was written in this way, and someone goes here and they say, we are “justified by faith.” Where is the parabolic statement in that? There are many verses like that, so really what we say is well, Christ spoke in “parables,” but every now and then God makes plain Gospel statements, He makes plain statements regarding the Gospel like, “being justified by faith,” that is what we tell people. But is that being accurate, or saying without a “parable” He did not speak, and He is the whole Bible, the whole Word of God, is it being accurate? Well, actually we are saying most of the Bible is in parabolic form, either actual statement, like Jesus would say, “the Kingdom of heaven is like,” or historical “parables,” or a book of “parables” like Proverbs. But we say, there are cases where God speaks directly, and gives a Gospel statement. So we are kind of saying, yes, it is true, the whole Bible. But and actually what Jesus said, without a “parable” He did not speak, is true of the whole Bible from Genesis through Revelation. It is true, that everything is a “parable.” But we have to understand what He meant by a “parable.”
Let us look at some of the verses in the Bible. Look at Matthew 16. This is a verse that, we as true believers would point to in order to help someone understand the nature of the Bible. It says in verses 6-12:
Then Jesus said unto them, Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees. And they reasoned among themselves, saying, It is because we have taken no bread. Which when Jesus perceived, he said unto them, O ye of little faith, why reason ye among yourselves, because ye have brought no bread? Do ye not yet understand, neither remember the five loaves of the five thousand, and how many baskets ye took up? Neither the seven loaves of the four thousand, and how many baskets ye took up? How is it that ye do not understand that I spake it not to you concerning bread, that ye should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees? Then understood they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.
See, they heard a statement, and they took it literally, and that is another hermeneutic, a Biblical hermeneutic, some people use with the Bible. They say, “Well you have to understand the Bible literally, and if God said something, well that is what He meant, it is a plain statement, understand it exactly as He said it.” Well, the Disciples did that, He was talking about bread, and so they naturally thought of bread and they were wrong, they were wrong. No, He was using bread as an example of doctrine, of the teaching of the Sadducees, the teaching of the Pharisees. He was using that in order to be a type of what He really meant. In other words, He was hiding truth.
Also, go to John 6, this passage it really describes a lot of how we are to understand the Bible. In John 6:51-55, Jesus is talking to people that were listening to Him. They were following Him to some degree and it says in John 6:51-55:
I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat? Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.
Now, many Protestant churches would condemn the Catholic church for saying this very thing, this is the blood of Christ, this is the body of Christ, as they are giving the bread and the wine, or the grape juice in the Lord’s Supper. And we know that God is finished with the churches, and that is not in view anymore, it does not matter what churches are doing, because they do not have the authority or the blessing of God anymore. But we can see that, that is being a little bit more honest with what this is saying, as far as the literal understanding of the Bible. Jesus said, you must eat my flesh and drink my blood. And of course the Jews did not understand. It says in verse 60:
Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it?
“Who can hear it?” It is so difficult, and that is the nature of the Bible—covering truth, hiding truth.
If you go to Luke 17, and this is an example I like to use when people say we are to use the historical grammatical method of interpreting Scripture, literal method, the plain understanding method. Well, in Luke 17, it speaks of ten lepers. In verses 12-14:
And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off: And they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go show yourselves unto the priests. …
Now, Jesus said that, because, back in Leviticus 14, in the first couple of verses, especially verse 2, it says:
This shall be the law of the leper in the day of his cleansing: He shall be brought unto the priest:
And the priest will make a sacrifice. Jesus was going to cleanse the lepers, they did become cleansed of their leprosy. So, He is referring to Leviticus 14, and He tells them in Luke 17:14-18:
… Go show yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed. And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, And fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan. And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine? There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger.
Let me ask the children, where are the nine lepers? Where did they go? To the priest, they went to the priest, that is what Jesus told them to do, “Go show yourselves unto the priests,” maybe they were even familiar with Leviticus 14, they were Jews, well the nine were, the one was a Samaritan. They would have been familiar with some parts of the Bible possibly, and Jesus tells them plainly, straightforward, literally, “Go show yourselves unto the priests,” and as they went, all ten were cleansed, and their skin became like a baby, probably just like Naaman the Syrian who was cleansed of his leprosy.
And one of the lepers, the Samaritan, he realizes that this awful disease which could cause your digits, your fingers to fall off, or your nose to be destroyed, this awful disease, this leprosy was removed from him, and he turns around and runs to Jesus and falls down and gives Him honour and glorifies God Christ tells us. And what else did he do? He disobeyed. Jesus said, “Go show yourselves unto the priests,” and just this one man after seeing that he was cleansed, runs back to Jesus. He did not go with the nine to Jerusalem, he went to Jesus. Now that we know that Christ spoke in “parables” and without a “parable” He did not speak, we know the whole Bible is a spiritual book and is hiding truth. What is the truth of Leviticus 14:2? What is the truth that is hid that a “leper in the day of his cleansing” should show himself to the priest? Leprosy represents sin, the priest represents Christ, the “great high priest” for His people. So Jesus when He saves someone, He cleanses them spiritually of the awful disease of sin. And a saved person on “the day of his cleansing,” at the moment of salvation, goes to Jesus, right? And we fall down because now He becomes our Lord, our God, our Master, we serve Him, we give Him glory. And the Samaritan acted out exactly what Leviticus 14 was teaching for centuries, that a sinner on the day of salvation is to go to Jesus. And the Samaritan ran and Jesus commends him, “There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger.” Meaning, the other nine did not give glory to God. How can they fail of not giving glory to God when they listen to Him, they obeyed Him, they went to Jerusalem and found an earthly priest. Well yes, but they missed “For Christ is the end of the law,” they missed what the Bible was teaching and hiding in that statement that Jesus reiterated to them that they should show themselves to a priest.
Now this is very serious, this is very serious, because this is telling us, people who want to take the Bible completely literally are not giving glory to God, and it is an indicator they are not saved. They do not understand, “they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not.” They do not understand the Bible itself, and they do not understand how God gave us the Bible, how He spoke in “parables.”
You know, as we think about the Bible, just look at the various books. Proverbs, Proverbs is a book of “parables,” it is a whole book. That is what a proverb is, it is a story that has a spiritual meaning.
Or think about Job, go to Job 27:1:
Moreover Job continued his parable, and said,
Now Job is a historical book, and he was a historical character, he was a real man, and everything we read in the book of Job was true and an historical fact, but God also is using it as a “parable.”
Look at Job 29:1:
Moreover Job continued his parable, and said,
Now, that helps us understand Job, a type of Christ who is suffering. And in Job’s suffering we see Jesus suffering for the sins of His people. As we look at the Bible we find books like Daniel, Ezekiel that give us images and kind of strange accounts. Like, if you read Ezekiel 1, the “four living creatures,” what is that? Or the book of Revelation, which speaks of “a beast” coming “up out of the sea,” and the harlot Babylon, and all these images.
How can anyone avoid the truth that God is speaking in “parables”? Well, they avoid it by saying Revelation is a book of hyperbolic language, that is a theological term. What does hyperbolic mean? Exaggeration, to make a point, “parables.” They say it is hyperbolic, because they do not want to use the word “parable,” they may have to learn that Jesus spoke with “parables” and without a “parable” He did not speak.
Or the Song of Solomon is poetic, this is what the theologians call that book. But if you read the Song of Solomon, there are images of “my sister my spouse” and the love of the Shulamite woman, but it is a picture of Christ and His church.
It is only when we understand that God spoke in “parables,” that we understand Esther. How can you understand the book of Esther that does not even make reference to God, unless you know that King Ahasuerus is a type of God, and when he extends “the golden sceptre toward Esther” who is representing the believers, who find grace in God’s sight, as she found grace in King Ahasuerus’ sight, do we even see the reason why it is in the Bible. It is only at that point that we understand why God put it in the Bible.
Or Ruth, that account of the great redeemer of Boaz who takes Ruth to wife, it is the Gospel the spiritual meaning.
Well, some people might admit, yes ,there are parts of the Bible you have to understand like that, but you know there is also a lot of history that you have to take only has history. Or, you can learn some moral teaching from it.
Go to Psalm 78, Psalm 78 is a Psalm. If you were to read it, it is pretty long and that describes or gives information about Israel’s sojourn in the wilderness primarily, and yet it begins in verses 1-2:
Give ear, O my people …
And God is always doing that, He wants to know if we are hearing. Because so many “hearing, they hear not.”
Give ear, O my people, to my law: incline your ears to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable: I will utter dark sayings of old:
And again, we see that this is speaking of Israel in the wilderness and the various things that happened to them. And that gives us justification to go back to Exodus, or to go back to the earlier books and look at their wilderness sojourn, and to say now spiritually, here is what that “rock” represents, here is the “water” gushing out of the “rock.” This is what that typifies. And God even tells us in 1 Corinthians 10, that “rock” was Christ, He tells us so we cannot miss it. On and on and on. Actually, as we do this more and more in the Bible, we see it is actually a “parable.” Yes, but there are parts someone would stubbornly hold out, if the New Testament does not explain it, then we are not to understand it as a “parable.”
Let us go to Galatians 4. In Galatians 4, it says in verses 21-24:
Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law?
Again, do you have ears to hear? Do you hear the law? And a good Jew would say, “Yes, I hear the law, I know I am to keep the Sabbath day and to be circumcised.” No, you are not hearing the law. What does circumcision mean? Circumcision of the heart where our sins are cut off. What does it mean to keep the seventh day holy, the Sabbath? It means that in the matter of salvation, God does everything, and we do no work whatsoever, or else we die like the man who picked up a few sticks. You see, God is saying, “do ye not hear the law?” Do you not understand what I am telling you?
For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise. Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; …
God just called them “an allegory,” which is another way of saying “parable,” hyperbolic language means “parable,” poetic language means “parable.” And here “an allegory” definitely is a “parable” because it is setting up the “two sons” of Abraham, the one born by Sarah, and the other born by Hagar, and God is saying, they are like “two covenants.” Just like Jesus would say, “the kingdom of Heaven is like,” God is saying that those “two sons” are like “two covenants.” Well, if you go back to Genesis 16 through 22 where we read about Isaac, and we read about Ishmael and their mothers, there is no clue there that God is speaking parabolically or spiritually. It is just presented as history. Now if you follow the methodology of the churches, they say, Okay, if the New Testament opens it up, or explains it, you can take that as a “parable.” So what you do is when you come to Genesis 16, and you start reading about Isaac and Ishmael and their mothers in that true history. You can understand that spiritually, but as soon as you get to Genesis 23, stop, stop there, you cannot understand spiritually as God goes on with further history.
Now, how can anyone really, they will not say this, but that is what they are teaching. How can anyone think that there are whole segments like the wilderness sojourn that has spiritual meaning like the “two sons” of Abraham, the “two covenants” that have spiritual meaning. How can anyone think that the whole Bible, that it is not all the Word of God? And we know it is, because Jesus the Word said, I speak in “parables” and without a “parable” I do not speak. And really we see this is how we are to come to the Bible. This is how God hid truth.
If you turn to Proverbs 2:1-5, where is says:
My son, if thou wilt receive my words, and hide my commandments with thee;
As Psalm 119 says, “Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee”:
So that thou incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding; Yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding; If thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures; Then shalt thou understand the fear of JEHOVAH, and find the knowledge of God.
See God is telling us that is how we go to the Bible, with a shovel, and a pick ax, looking for gold, looking for silver, looking for treasure. Start digging, dig, study with a Concordance and an Interlinear Bible as helps, and some of the other books we have as helps. Look into the Word because there is buried treasure, there is buried nuggets of gold of God’s wisdom, and pieces of silver of His wisdom. And this is God’s direction to man, to anyone who would desire to know Him truly, then start reading the Bible. Not casually, not on the surface, but read it in a way that you are studying what it says, and you will find that there are great spiritual riches that God reveals to us in His Word.
Now, we began talking about Dr. White in that debate who said he can give accounts and instances when Jesus was not speaking in a “parable,” where there are verses in the Bible we have to admit that are not parabolic. Let us go back to Romans 5, and look at verse 1 again:
Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:
Is that a parabolic statement?
Or go to Genesis 1:1:
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
Or go to John 3:16:
For God so [or in this manner] loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Is that a parabolic statement?
How about Romans 10:13:
For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
There are lots of verses like that, are they “parables”? Well on one hand no, it is not in the form of a “parable” like “the kingdom of Heaven is like.” These verses are not given to us in that way.
But if you had to summarize what a “parable” is, if you had to break it down to its barest bones, just look at what a “parable” is. What is the essence of a “parable”? We mentioned it earlier, it is spiritual, but not always. The essence of a “parable” is to hide truth. That is the reason Jesus said, I speak to them because “they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not.”
Now in Romans 5:1, we are “justified by faith.” Is that to be understood just as it says? That is why some people say, “Well I believe, I have faith, I am justified.” No, because we have to study more of the Bible to understand. To be “justified by faith” is not our faith, it is Christ’s faith. Is there hidden truth in Romans 5:1? Yes, there is.
How about in Genesis 1:1:
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Well, God did create “the heaven and the earth” but there is hidden truth there. In the word “God” it is Elohiym, which is a spiritual word for God. And you cannot understand that until you read other parts of the Bible that reveals God is triune. In that sense, you can use the plural to describe Him, and He is the Creator. So there are two statements.
What about John 3:16, which so many people thought was very simple and easy? And it is really one of the most difficult verses in the Bible. It hides all kinds of truth, as it says:
For God [in this manner] loved the world …
Now right there, people think God loves everyone, they are off, just taking the plain surface meaning. They do not understand:
… that he gave his only begotten Son, …
Sure, when Jesus came into the world, and then went to the Cross, that is when God gave him. No, now we have learned it was before the foundation of the world “that he gave his only begotten Son.” That Christ became the Son when He rose from the dead.
… that whosoever believeth in him should not perish …
People get it wrong all the time. Accept Christ, believe in Jesus, and you will not perish, you will live. Wrong, wrong, because that is an act of our will, and we cannot get ourselves saved. We cannot create within us “a new heart,” God Himself has to do that. But you see in that one verse there are a lot of hidden truths.
Or go to Romans 10, which is also one of the example verses I gave in verse 13:
For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
No, we have to search more of the Bible. And God tells us “there is none that calleth upon thy name.” In Isaiah 64:7 it says:
And there is none that calleth upon thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee: …
Just like at a Crusade in the stadium, they might as well all go home, and whoever is doing the preaching, might as well not even bother. But they see an emotional stirring, they see through dramatics, either a dramatic presentation of the Gospel, or something like that, that people do respond and walk down an aisle, and that there might be a couple thousand people that take that step. But God says, “none that calleth upon thy name.” Because we are all sinners, none of us understand, none of us are good, none are righteous, none call upon His name, and no one can stir up his dead soul to take hold of Him. It is an impossibility, it is an absolute impossibility, but God just simply says:
For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
But we cannot understand until we search the Bible. And we find the only one who will call upon Him is the individual that is already been saved, and then is able to respond in a spiritual way to God.
I tried to think. Is there a verse in the Bible that does not hide truth? Is there a verse somewhere that God is not hiding truth? And if you have one, please let me know, please let me know. See, without a “parable” He did not speak, and the essence of a “parable” is hidden truth. It applies to Jesus’ statements, “the kingdom of heaven is like,” it applies to historical “parables,” it applies to plain Gospel statements that we just read. It is the whole Bible, the whole Bible. Now that is very helpful when we finally realize that, that without a “parable” means God did not speak without hiding truth, because some people who have learned the proper hermeneutic of the Bible, which is “comparing spiritual things with spiritual” and they also take the verse, without a “parable” Christ did not speak. And then they go to Romans 9 and they say, “you cannot say that “five months” is a literal period of time, you cannot say that because it has to be understood spiritually.”
Or they are also saying now, May 21, 2011 cannot be a literal earthquake, it cannot be, because that is the day God is going to darken the sun and the moon, and the stars will fall, all of that is spiritual language of God removing the Gospel. Well, so is the earthquake. No, No, without a “parable” Christ did not speak, and hidden truth normally is spiritual. Hidden truth overwhelmingly is spiritual truth, that is, it is a spiritual element like the sun being darkened, it is not literally the sun in the sky.
But the “five months” is hidden truth too because, that was in the Bible for centuries and no one knew what it meant until recently. Recently we understand, Oh that is from May 21 to October 21, and it can be called part of a “parable,” or understood that it is a “parable” in the same way God hides truth throughout the whole Bible.
God is the One who wrote the Bible, He is the One who gave us the Bible, and if He wants to talk about “locusts” swarming, coming out of the bottomless pit for the “five months” period, and we know that is not literal, but that is to be understood spiritually. And then if He wants to say in verse 5 of Revelation 9:
And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man.
If God wants to say that it is a literal “five months” period, that is His privilege, that is His privilege to do, because the qualifier is, is it hidden, was it hidden truth? That is what Christ meant when He said without a “parable” I did not speak.
1st Question: Two verses, 1 Corinthians 2:14. I was just thinking in regards to your message. How many out there hear how Christ spoke in “parables?” And how it is “foolishness” to them? Of course, God teaches us here through this verse why it is “foolishness” to them.
Chris: I will read in 1 Corinthians 2:13-14:
Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
And that is the Bible.
But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
That is a fact, that is a fact, that is why churches teach so many different doctrines, because they do not know what the Bible is teaching, they do not understand what Christ has said in His Word. And this is a big reason in Jeremiah 8:7, this applies to what is going on today:
Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle and the crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming; but my people know not the judgment of JEHOVAH.
They cannot know. If something is “spiritually discerned” it is very hazy, it is very foggy. They maybe are hearing some things like the Pharisees perceived from time to time that Christ spoke something against them, but they could not grab a hold of it, or really understand it, because it is not within them, there is no ability.
1st Question (continued): They are locked out from any understanding.
Chris: Yes they are in darkness.
1st Question (continued): Also in John 3:3, and I think the word “see” means perceive or understand:
Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
Chris: We share a lot from the Bible, but it boils down to if we are truly a child of God. If we are one of God’s people, God will make sure His people do understand, and if we are not, there will be no understanding.
1st Question continued: It will not impact our lives, it will not register.
Chris: Like the people of Noah’s day, they had advance warning, they did not understand it, they still perished in the flood. Now another verse that goes along with this is John 8:47, which says:
He that is of God heareth God’s words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God.
It is very simple, it is very simple. Why was Jonah able to go to Nineveh and say, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” And that is all he said, one sentence as far as we know, that is it, and the whole city repented from the king on down.
And then today, you maybe have had an opportunity to witness to people and you give them a tract, you give them a book, We Are Almost There, maybe the updated Time Has An End, you give them this literature and it is a good amount of information and they do not believe, they do not see it. And you could pile phonebooks worth of information at someone’s feet that teaches the truth from the Bible, and they are not going to understand it, they are not going to get it. On the other hand, the flimsiest little bit of information like Jonah brought to Nineveh and there is great salvation because, “He that is of God heareth God’s words,” “My sheep hear my voice.” He that is not of God cannot hear.
1st Question continued: It is those whom God has given eternal life. That is what makes the difference between those that hear the Word and are doing it, versus those that hear it and go away. It does not register or impact their life.
Chris: Daniel tells us the wise will understand, none of the wicked will understand.
2nd Question: The study today made me remember about what Jesus was saying, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” And of course they had no clue as to what He was talking about. But my question is, is this study pretty much a precursor to the cliffhanger from last week with Melchisedec?
Chris: No, it is not. I am still working on Melchisedec. That is another good verse, where Jesus made a statement, just like He said to the Disciples about the leaven of the Pharisees, and He said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” And they all thought what I can touch, that temple right there, and there were even witnesses, false witnesses that rose up at His trial, and that was one of the things they were trying to prove, that He spoke about tearing down the literal temple in Jerusalem, and again they did not hear, they did not hear, and that is the nature of fallen man.