Taking potato? Sure. Can sleep. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. We will allow no sleeping in tonight's. That's why you sit up near the front. That's a good plan there. Sit up front. Only the preacher knows you're leaving. Yeah, we got this backwards, don't we? Those of you online, welcome. Sorry that you missed the steak dinner. I would show you a picture, I do have proof. But our computer, we have about a ten year old computer up here and it's showing its age, and so it's scripture. Only tonight, if we get that far with it, we'll see. Might have to do it the old fashioned way and use a Bible, even. We'll see. Welcome, everybody. Glad that all of you are here. Let's see, I'm trying to remember what next week was. We have supper plans for next week, too. I'll let you know by Sunday. I forgot what it was, but it's not steak again. Those were good. And Sunday's. A regular Sunday. Second Session of King David life and Times of King David. And I don't know, it's either the last or the next to the last. I keep sort of teasing that last or the next to the last of Samson. We'll see. And 945, 1045, all that'll be good. And tonight is either the last or the next to the last year of Mark. Thanks for getting that. Yes, we got a long ways to go on the Gospel of Mark, and this is the last Wednesday night for a while that the Romeros will be with us. We'll miss you. When you go back to Arizona, when you come back to close up the house, make sure it's on a Wednesday or a Sunday. How's that? And Jacob, glad to have you here for your first Wednesday night with us. Okay, let's have a word of prayer and get going. Dear Heavenly Father, we are most grateful for our church family and the love and encouragement that it gives to us for a place to meet here on this Wednesday night in safety and studying the word of God and freedom, and we're grateful for that. And we pray for those in Israel, especially in the very difficult times that they are having right now. And pray that you'd give wisdom and strength to all those carrying out that war that it might bring days of peace here for the people of the Middle East soon. And we pray for our own church family, asking your watch care over us like the Romeros when they travel back to Phoenix and the encouragement that they'll have with family there. We're grateful for your presence here tonight through the word in Jesus name, amen. Mark, chapter four is where we are tonight. And we concluded last week with talking a little bit about I forgot to push the button there. Sorry. Those of you who are online, we're just looking at the graphic, but now you see me. Here I am. But with last week we ended in Mark chapter four, verses one, two and one and two. Excuse me, verses one and two, which introduced a little bit of the parable. And it gave us some information about how to interpret parables. Now we're going to go into the parable. The good news is, if you already forgot what I said last week, that there is some more. Once we get past this parable, jesus is going to talk about it again. And we are going to look about the parable of the sower and the soils. And it goes pretty clear, pretty plain in the parable itself. Behold, there went out a sower to sow. That's what sowers do came to pass. As he sowed. Some fell by the wayside and the fowls of the air came and devoured it up. And some fell on stony ground where it had not much earth. And immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of the earth. But when the sun was up, it was scorched. And because it had no root in it, it withered away. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it and it yielded no fruit. Other fell on good ground, and it did yield fruit. That sprang up and increased and brought forth some 30, some 60, some 100. So we'll stop right there before. Now let's read verse nine. He closes out he said unto them, he that hath ears to hear, let him hear. Let's start right there. It's a rather obvious statement, isn't it? What do you got those ears for anyway? Here. And yet imagine a little bit that you are there. Jesus has always been plain spoken. He always just kind of I don't know, I'll say he blurted it out there. You knew exactly what he said, what he meant. All is good. He was always pretty direct towards his enemies. He was always pretty clear on his message, his testimony. There wasn't a lot of fog in what he's teaching. And there's big crowds, a lot of people there hearing him. And this crowd happens to be so big. They leave the city, they go out to the seashore where there's plenty of beach space there. He gets in a boat and he's talking to a very large crowd there. Who knows how big the crowd was, but a very large crowd. And all of a sudden, Jesus starts to give a story. Behold, a sower went out to sow. I suspect even right then they were like, wait, Jesus doesn't talk like this. Why in the world is he giving us pretty stories? This is not bedtime. What's up with this? Once upon a time now, we are used to hearing the parables of Jesus. But there's one thing that I think we have to understand is that Jesus hasn't talked in parables up to this point. This is a new thing for him. He's probably a year. We'll put some dates on this eventually, when we get to a spot in Mark that has kind of a point we can peg down. But he's probably a year into the three years ministry, and the first year of his ministry was when the bulk of things happened. That was when he had the big crowds. That was when he did the miracles. The second year of his ministry, he's pretty much in hiding. And the third year of his ministry, he's up in Caesarea Philippi, he's over on the other side of the Jordan, he's raising Lazarus from the dead, a few things like that. But the enemy is hot on his heels by the third year. So the first year, whenever you get all the teachings, the feeding of the 5000, the big crowds, all that is that first year. So during that first year that he was maybe the most famous man in Israel, maybe the most famous man in the world, who knows? This was the time where again he was, let's see, I don't want to get into politics too much, but he was probably more Donald Trump than Barack Obama. In his presentation of his speech, he was blunt, here it is, take it or leave it. That's not the Jesus we're used to, because the parables come in the last two and the year two and three, and we're used to just reading the parables. We know the parables of Jesus and the parables of Jesus are well, that's a nice story. I think I know what it means. You could apply it here, you could apply it there, you could apply it everywhere. This is one of those nice stories. So I suspect the people on the seaside that day were like, okay, that's nice. First of all, how many of you need an advanced degree in agriculture to understand what's going on here? Just the sower and the soils, and some is on the wayside, and some is on the stony ground, and some gets in the weeds, and others really produce as well. You don't need a degree. Or to put it in Jake's word, you don't need no degree. That's exactly mean. If you've planted anything, that's pretty obvious. And these are people who live in an agrarian society. I think they're thinking duh. Yeah, that's right. And furthermore, this is a story just by itself. You could give just about any application you wanted to, right? Teacher in a math class could say, now, let me tell you how it is in teaching math. Some of you, I put it out there and your imagination just takes it, or your daydreaming causes it to never even come and soak into your brain. Others of you like, oh, I love math until you get to algebra, and then you're not going to have anything to do with it. Then some are so good at math. You boys do great in the fourth grade, fifth grade, 6th grade, 7th grade, 8th grade, in the 9th grade, you fall in love and you don't do math anymore. And then there are some of you who become mathematicians. It fits whatever area you want. So what up with this story? Right? It's just kind of way too vague, way too general, and I'll say way not Jesus up to this point. So what's up with that? Okay, there's the story. But he does close it again with that. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. That's kind of I don't know, it's a little red flag, isn't it, that says, hey, it's time for you to do some interpretive work on this. I'm not totally going to tell you the interpretive know there's a lot of I think was it last week we talked about the telegram to President Truman about the baby's been delivered. He's a good fat boy, and you have know, he who hath ears to hear, let him hear. This is communicating something. And Jesus is sort of stopping right there saying this is communicating something. It's not just a pretty story that you can apply in math class or farming or a church or synagogue, whatever it is. This is one that's got it. So there's the story. Okay, now to sort of solidify my claim that people were scratching their head a little bit saying, this is very much not like Jesus, who usually just tells us how to jump, how high to jump, everything about it. He's so plain spoken. This is not like him. To verify that, I want to go to verse ten now, which says right here, when he was alone, they that were about him with the Twelve asked of him the parable can I put that to say, jesus, this is not like you. That was a sweet story, but we know farming. We didn't need the farming lesson. What's up with it? And I think they're a little perplexed about this. I think it does show a marked departure from the straightforward both miracles and teaching. Remember already in fact, very early on it said he teaches as one with authority, not like the scribes. This looks to me more like a preacher story. Come in. Just these illustrations going on. What's up with that? That doesn't seem to be one with authority. So they seem to come and say, okay, tell us, what were you getting at? We can tell you were getting at something. You even sort of hinted you're getting at something. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. And so we got ears, we're all ears. Tell us what's up? We would like to know. Which gets us into verse eleven. He said unto them, unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God, but unto them that are without. All these things are done in parables. A couple of things that we ought to get out of this. So let's, as I so often do, start at the end of the verse unto them that are without, that is, those who aren't listening, those who are not with us, those who reject us, those who are our enemies, those who are not on the inside of this track that we're on, all things are done in parables. That ought to tell us right here that at least this time I'm going to argue every time because he's going to say some more things in a moment that'll help this argument. But at least here when we have a parable, we know we've got enemies of Jesus right there in the midst and he wants to tell something to his followers that he doesn't want them to get. This is a secret code message that he's given and you got to have the magic glasses in order to get them on. He even talks about the mystery here. Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the Kingdom of God. Now we have this then that parables. I think we talked some about this last week. Parables are always given to conceal, not to reveal almost, except that they reveal a secret to the insiders. Usually if you look up the definition of a parable, it is an earthly story with a heavenly meaning. It's something designed to help people understand. That's not a parable, that's an illustration. And there's illustrations and there's parables. This is not it. So here is parables. They are designed to conceal from the enemies and reveal to those that recognize what's going on. Now what's going on here it's given to know the mystery of the Kingdom of God. Let's start out with the Kingdom of God. I have a little definition I worked on today and I kind of liked it so much that I'm going to read it here to you. Here it is, the Kingdom of God. Shall we stop right there? That's probably my most oft used phrase as a preacher, isn't it? Shall we stop right there? That's why we never get to the end. But anyway, that and my chasing rabbits. That's the two things I do well. Here we go. Unto you is given to know the mystery of the Kingdom of God. Let's start out with the Kingdom of God. Before we get to the mystery of the Kingdom of God. I think the Kingdom of God is very clear cut, dried. It's not some mysterious kind of thing. I think there's a mystery of the Kingdom of God that he's revealing in parables. I don't think the Kingdom of God is mysterious. What is the Kingdom of God? Here's the definition I've given. The Kingdom of God is the prophesied reign of God through the Messiah, a descendant of King David who liberates Israel from its oppressors and establishes a just and righteous rule. This kingdom is a geopolitical reality centered in Jerusalem that restores Israel to its former glory and brings peace, justice and prosperity to the world. Okay, that's the long version of me saying future physical fraternal. It's when the Messiah reigns upon his throne, brings peace, the government rests upon his shoulders and he brings peace. There's at least 6810 twelve passages we could give to uphold that definition there. We won't go into all of that. But just think of the geopolitical reign of the coming Messiah. That is, it's an earthly thing, it's a political thing, and it's Messiah reigning on earth. They knew the kingdom of God. It wasn't like Jesus was the first one who had ever spoken of the kingdom of God. In fact, we already talked about it, right when Matthew opens up about the third verse of chapter one, and not Matthew, Mark about the third verse in chapter one of Mark, he introduces John the Baptist and he just says john came teaching the kingdom of God, saying repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. Never gives a definition for the kingdom of God because they already knew what the kingdom of God was. The Old Testament, especially the prophets, are full of the teaching about the kingdom of God. We even talked about it a little bit Sunday, how God took this kingdom. That wasn't his plan in the first place, and he made it his ultimate plan out of his grace. So kingdom of God, that's a simple one. So you don't need to hide it, anything like that. In fact, it was prophesied. The prophecies are full of it. In fact, I would say probably the prophetic word is more about the kingdom than anything else. This future geopolitical reign in Jerusalem of the Messianic king over Israel and blessing all the nations of the earth. So the kingdom of God, we know, but here it says it's given to you to know the mystery of the kingdom of God. So what is the mystery of the kingdom of God? Here, I think, is where maybe Christianity has gone more wrong than in any other area. They have created the mystery kingdom. There is the kingdom and then there is the mystery kingdom. I don't think this passage teaches there's a kingdom and there's a mystery kingdom. I think it teaches there's a kingdom and there is a mystery of the kingdom. Now we need to know what the mystery of the kingdom is. Let me tell you what those out there who talk about the mystery kingdom, there's a number of words that they might use for it. They might call it the spiritual kingdom, the inner kingdom, the overarching kingdom, the spiritual kingdom. Did I already say that? They might call it the mystery kingdom? All of this, that's the kingdom in your heart. I think the whole kingdom in your heart thing is misnomer. We want the Lord to rule and reign in our hearts and our lives and our families. No doubt about that. That's not the kingdom. So what is the mystery then, of the kingdom of God? Well, that's what these parables are going to tell us. And so here we come and we know what the kingdom is. But what's the mystery? Well, it's given to you to know the mystery of the kingdom of God. He gave that when they said, what are you doing about all these parables? So this ought to tell us we couldn't nail it down for sure yet, but we're only at verse eleven. This ought to tell us parables are going to reveal the mystery of the kingdom of God. That's what they're going to do. Okay, let's go on to verse twelve. And in verse twelve he actually quotes from Isaiah, chapter six, verses nine and ten. That seeing. They may see and not perceive. Okay, they see it. Yeah, they see it. They don't get it. They don't perceive what that is there. Have you seen sometimes you see it on a business card or a little scroll work of wood like so it says Jesus, but you can't really tell it says Jesus until you see that it says Jesus and then you can't not see Jesus. And if you flip it upside down it says looks. It almost looks like Islamic scroll work when you first look at it. But the longer you look it says, oh, it says Jesus. And you flip it upside down and says it's really kind of a cool thing. It's one of those you see it, you don't perceive it till later or maybe more familiar. Remember the ink blotch that's got the old woman in it and the young lady in it? And which one do you see? Do you see the old woman? And it takes a long time to where you can see both and you can get two people and they'll have a fight over it's. An old woman? No, it's a young beautiful woman. No, she's an old hag. No, she's a young beauty. Which one is it? And guys, you're always just better off saying beautiful, absolutely beautiful. Whatever you see, just say beautiful. They see it, but they don't perceive it. Okay, again, this is a quote from the Old Testament. Hearing, they may hear but not understand, lest at any time they should be converted and their sins should be forgiven them. Now that's kind of an OD thing for Jesus to say is, hey, all this stuff about the kingdom of God, the prophesied kingdom of God, the promised kingdom of God, I'm going to talk to you in parables so that nobody gets it. What? This doesn't make sense. Well, it's not that he doesn't want them to get the kingdom. They got the kingdom in terms of understanding it. They already understand the kingdom. They get that. But there's something about the kingdom that he is going to reveal and he speaks to them in parables. Why? Let's back up just a little bit. All these things are let me highlight here. That part right there. I think I can even make it yellow. There we go. All these things are done in parables. That seeing. They may see and not perceive. Ah, this tells us, again, something about parables. When you have a parable, it is so that you can put the truth right out there in front of you, and only the insiders get it. Did you see the news report yesterday of some of those Hamas butchers that went into one of those Jewish homes? And they had taken a grandmother, I think it was captive, and her son was in the fire department or the police department, I don't know. Anyway, he came to rescue and the mother, the old woman, the grandmother, she kept going, and the boy said, there's five of them in the house. That's exactly what she was communicating. Shelly's always trying to communicate to me when I'm preaching here, and I never get it, but that boy was good enough to say, oh, there's five of them. Okay, seeing, you see but do not perceive. This was the idea that the captors that were right in there. She doesn't want them to know what she's saying, but she's getting the word across. This is a parable. It puts that done. And Jesus does these things in parables in order that they may see and not perceive. He wants them not to get it and to not understand. So again, John the Baptist came and he was pretty clear and blunt about the kingdom of God and brought that about, and no problem there. But Jesus comes now and he hides something. What he hides is the mystery of the kingdom. He does these things in parables so that they don't get it. So, yeah, they're sitting there hearing, but they don't know what he's saying. They're not perceiving it, and if they did, they would be converted and their sins should be forgiven them. Now, don't mix that up with the gospel that we live today. That's what happens in the kingdom is that Israel is changed. In a moment, it receives its glorification and their sins are forgiven and they enter into the new covenant. So Jesus comes here and says, okay, I got some ambiguity that I'm bringing into the situation with a parable. Again, this is the answer to why are you talking in parables? The answer is, so nobody gets it. That's why I'm talking in parables, except those who got it. They will get it. Can I? Yes, I can. Can I remind you that in other places Jesus says, to whom? No, I almost mixed that up. The one who has will receive more, the one who has not, it'll be taken away. Kind of a mystery phrase there, isn't it? Doesn't sound very fair, does it? That phrase is given in several other gospels, but it's always given in the context of this parable to say, if you get it, you get it, but if you don't, you are going off on a wild goose chase. You got it, you got it. You don't have it. You are out there running. You lost what you even had. So Jesus again comes with this particular prophecy from Isaiah and brings in sort of this interesting idea, because the particular prophecy in Isaiah again is chapter six, verses nine and ten. That prophecy. And it's loosely quoted here, which makes me feel better, because sometimes when I quote Scriptures, it's loosely quoted. You can tell it's Isaiah six, chapter six, verses nine and ten. But it's not a direct quote. He leaves some of it out. It clearly gets the message across that this is what it is, that particular message. We're going to come back to it later. But in the book of Isaiah, isaiah was preaching 600 years earlier than this to the Northern Kingdom. And to the Northern Kingdom. He was saying, hey, I'm bringing you a word. But the problem is you won't listen to it. Seeing, you don't see, hearing, you don't hear. What we're going to learn here is that Isaiah might have been talking to the Northern Kingdom about the Assyrians coming in and wiping them out, but ultimately he's talking about the coming tribulation and the arrival of the kingdom of God and what's going to happen, and some things about the kingdom. So this is going to relate here. Now, let's go on. In verse 13, he said unto them, know ye not this parable? How then will ye know all parables? Ah, that's an unimportant phrase. Let's get that and see if we can highlight that one too, maybe. And this is what I want to do. I did it. Know ye not this parable. Well, you just told them and they were asking about the parable. Obviously they know the parable. They could repeat it to them. It's not that hard. But it uses just like Spanish has what, saber and connoisseur? Is that the two no words? Knowledge. Saber, conocer. Yeah. To know. Yeah, but you use them in different places. We pretty much have, yeah. I know algebra and I know John. One word for both Greek, Spanish came more from Greek and Latin has these divided words. Here is the word that you would use for perception. Not necessarily an experiential knowledge, but I get it. I have that kind of insight perception, depth of understanding is what it is. So don't you understand this parable, or do you not understand this parable? And then he says, how then will you know all parables? Well, that's kind of interesting if we are going to study parables, and a few years ago we did, but if we were going to study all the parables, I think it's no mistake that this parable is always first when Jesus shares parables, this is the first one. And that this parable is pretty famous of sayings of Jesus, if you've been to church three times, you know this one, right? I mean, it's been out there and come around. It's not for the advanced class. So do you know it? But here he says, this is going to be such foundational knowledge that you will not understand any parable if you don't understand this parable. That's a pretty broad statement, a pretty tall order, isn't it, that somehow all the other parables rely upon what we learn in this parable. But you look at this parable and it's this basic stuff about seeds growing. How in the world can that be instrumental to understanding all the other parables? So we got two things here, I think going. One is if it is a parable, it is concealing the mystery of the kingdom of God. So we ought to dig into it until we figure out what the mystery of the kingdom of God is. Second, the parable of the sower of soils gives some foundational information about the kingdom of God that if we don't have that foundational step, we're not going to make it. Let me stop and give a little bit of illustration here. Some of you know that my preaching is of a different sort than other places. And you come in and I've seen this happen so many times. You come in and you say, wow, I really like that. Just right straight to the text, and it holds to what the Bible says, and it makes it so clear. Amen. I love this. I love it. And then you come back the next week and say, oh, I love it. And that was a little different, but I love this. And then you come back the third week and you say, he said what? And you realize something is off here. Well, when I get that, if you're new with us, the thing to do is stick around for like 20 weeks, it'll finally come together. Give it 20 weeks before you decide. But very often I, and probably you, if you're a good right divider, you hear someone say something and you're like, he's got it wrong. I would like to correct him, but my heavens, I would have to go through 120 lessons before I could get to where he got it wrong. How in the world am I going to deal with this? So if you're like me, many times you just say, amen. God bless you, brother, because they're just not time to fix it right here. Because you say you got to have the prerequisites. I told you before, but I'm old enough to tell you again, and you're old enough to forgot that I told you before that when I was I just finished my junior year in college, and I had decided I was going to go get an MBA. Prior to that, I was going to go to law school and become speaker of the House. But I decided, okay, I'm not going to go to law school. I'll get an MBA instead. But then I realized to get an MBA, you had to have. Calculus, and I had general college math. There's a long way between calculus and general college math, and there was a long way in my mind, I didn't even know what calculus was. But to get the prerequisites to get into calculus, it was, know, two years worth of class before you can even then sign up for calculus. Except being the conniving young man that I am, I knew that I was going to be home in the summer and that University of New Mexico had a campus in Los Alamos, which is not really the place for a guy who doesn't know math to take calculus. But when you're desperate, they don't care who signs up for what. You pay your $30 and you're in. So I signed up for calculus at University of Mexico Los Alamos campus, and I drove up there. It was a night class, which is even worse for calculus, because, you know, a night class goes, like, 4 hours, and you're done for the week. And I sat next to this Chinese guy. Well, they are born knowing calculus. Anyway, at the end of the course, I was also smart enough to say, I don't need this for my degree plan. I needed to get into the MBA program, which, incidentally, I never went to. And so I said, I'm just taking this pass or fail. That way it doesn't affect the GPA. I was smart enough for that. I ended up passing the class with a B minus. The day I graduated, the day I finished the class, got my grade, B minus, I could not tell you what calculus was. To this day, I can't tell you what calculus is. I have no clue what calculus is. All I know is I got a B minus. For some reason. You put this number here, you pull that from there. It's this formula. I don't know why, but that's what you do, and you get the answer. So that was a long way around, wasn't it, to say sometimes theologically, they don't even have pre algebra? It's like, how are you going to tell them calculus? And if you do tell them, they're not going to know what you mean. This is one of the basic prerequisites, I think, to interpreting parables, is you got to know the mystery of the kingdom that is revealed in the story of the sower and the soils. That'll be your starting point. And once you start there, you'll be able to build and get the rest of them. But if you start at the rest of them, you're always going to be missing that little bit of information there. Again, that's what he says. How then will you know what? All parables. All parables. I have a theory which I haven't tested, and I could be proven wrong, but I think that Jesus might have been the inventor of the parable. I know that sounds far fetched. I think it sounds far fetched because we just think parables are the same thing as fables. And fables is the tortoise and the hare or whatever. It's a story with a moral to it. We mix them all up and illustrations and all that. I think Jesus came with this unique kind of genre of communication that was a story that had embedded with it this secret or this mystery. And he starts with this one. And he says, I know I could build the argument because I've done it before in my mind at least, I could build the argument that all of Jesus'parables are about the kingdom, specifically about a mystery of the kingdom. And you got to know this mystery first. So at least the parables of Jesus, maybe you could go on because really outside of Jesus, you don't have parables in the Bible. The prophets didn't come and tell parables, and Paul didn't tell parables, and John didn't tell parables. Jesus is the parable guy. So at least all of Jesus's parables you've got to know they reveal a mystery of the kingdom of God. And the prerequisite is knowing this one. Now, he goes on in verse 14 and he tells them he didn't tell the whole crowd. He told the whole crowd, the parable. Then they talk about it a little bit and he says, okay, this is what you've got to know. And so he says, the sower soweth the Word, the sower soweth the Word. In our Christian thinking, we take the Word to be the gospel of our salvation. He went out like a Billy Graham. He was proclaiming the gospel. And we take this in a dispensation of grace kind of delivery to put it out there. Remember that? That's anachronistic and isogistic. How was that? Sounded like I was educated, didn't I? I did. I used to be enrolled at the University of New Mexico in Los Alamos next to a Chinese guy. So Anachronistic is it doesn't belong in that time. And the gospel of grace, we haven't even had the cross yet. This is too soon for the Gospel of grace. So he goes out and sows the Word, or Scatters, the Word, it's not by grace are you saved through faith? Not that word. So it is maybe the word of God. The Old Testament. The Hebrew Scriptures. I'll venture to say in just a moment that it's the word about the kingdom. The reason I say it's, the word about the kingdom is going back to Isaiah, chapter six, verses eight and nine that we talked about later and kind of knowing and reading into there and saying, oh, Isaiah is not talking about the fall of the northern kingdom. He's talking about Israel and receiving his kingdom, which all of a sudden then begins to start to open the veil here a little bit. It's a short verse, but there's a lot in it. The sower. soweth the word. Now, in our way of thinking again, not only Anachronism, but isegesis that's reading ourselves into it and our experiences into it, in our way of reading the sower is who? Well, the one who sows the word so you might say, well, it's the preacher, it's the witness out there. It's whoever it is out there who's proclaiming the word of God. I think Jesus is thinking more specific. I can't really prove this one here, but I think Jesus is talking about a specific sower who goes out with the Word. Now again, I can't prove it and I wouldn't argue with you too much. If you say no, it's anyone who goes out with the word of the kingdom, I'd probably go with you on it. But if I'm really feeling grumpy like I do more often now than used to because it's a prerogative of age. So if I'm really feeling grumpy, I'll say no, it's only one particular sower. Not sowers go out to sow, but a sower. Who is it that ties me back? Why did Jesus use Isaiah Six? Isaiah six is also the passage that says in the year King Uzziah died, I saw him high and lifted up. You remember that passage? And then that comes down to God says, whom shall I send and who will go for us? And that ends with here am I, send me, here am I, send me. Now, we take that sort of in a missionary call kind of thing or an availability to know who's going to go, well, here am I, send me. And it's kind of inspirational in that manner. But in the book of Isaiah there really is kind of a connection to where I don't even think it's Isaiah. Here my sin me. I think it ends up the voice of one crying in the wilderness, which is a quote from Isaiah, chapter 45. I think it's 45. It's on your outline there, the voice of one crying out in the wilderness. Well, once you get to the Gospel of Mark, who is the voice of one crying out in the wilderness? John the Baptist. So could it be John the Baptist comes talking about the kingdom? Well, if not exclusively that it certainly would fit for mean maybe you could argue well, it's also Peter came announcing the kingdom and Peter, James and John, they were announcing. So yeah, you could do this. I think by the connection of Isaiah, I would put it to John the Baptist. I just had this flashback. This guy told me one time he was Jewish and he said, well, tell you where I am right now. If somebody put a gun to my head and said you have to choose one person to be the Messiah. He said, I choose Jesus Christ. I said, well, I'm making progress. Know it wasn't really a confession testimony of Jesus Christ, but hey, at least if you had to choose one here, if I had to choose one, I'd choose John the Baptist. John the baptist goes out. Sowing delivering proclaiming the Word about the kingdom, okay, not really a great mystery there. We know that he did that. And then there are those by the wayside, when they've heard Satan comes, takes away the Word, was sown in their hearts. Those likewise sown on stony ground. When they have heard the Word, immediately receive it with gladness, have no root in themselves, so endure it for a time afterward with affliction or persecution arises for the Word's sake. Immediately they are offended. And these are they which are sown among the thorns, such as hear the Word, the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, the lust of other things, enter in, choke the Word and it become unfruitful. And these are those which are sown in good ground, such as hear the Word and receive it. Bring forth some thirtyfold, some 60, and some 100, and that's the end. Did you catch the mystery of the kingdom of God that is foundational to all the parables? You might still be like, could you spell it out for me? And fortunately, I will. I think Jesus announced to the whole crowd, we all know about the kingdom, right? Amen. May it come quickly in our time. That's what the Jews say this day. May it come quickly in our time. Jesus then says, John the Baptist came preaching it, and some of you wouldn't even listen. Scribes, john the Baptist came preaching it, and some of you were so excited about it. But other things came in. John the Baptist came preaching, and some of you look good, you're still alive, but man, everything's choking it out, you're not doing anything about it. And then there are some who really are beginning to produce fruit. Now, what's the message there? The message is, I think, shocking for Israel, that when the kingdom is offered, not everybody is going to receive it, which is an OD odd thing, because the kingdom is the thing that they had been living for, for generation after generation after generation. They all said, May He come quickly in our day. They are looking for this. And he is announcing the mystery of the kingdom was that it was going to be rejected. I think you can look into the scripture and you'll find a lot of stuff about the kingdom, but you will not find that it is going to be rejected. Nobody expected it to be rejected. Everybody expected as soon as the Messiah comes in, they're going to say, he's a jolly good fella and he's going to wipe out the Romans and everything's going to be good. Peace, prosperity, wine dripping from the mountains, all will be good. That was their expectation. So Jesus needs to say, ah, it's going to be delayed because it's going to be rejected. So the mystery of the kingdom we know what the kingdom is. The mystery is it's not going to be accepted, and we have to take that as the foundational understanding for all the other parables. Okay, I know the kingdom is not going to be accepted. Now, let's add to that. Now, someone might argue just a little bit and say, wait a minute, there's a lot of Old Testament passages about the Messiah being rejected. And there are. But I didn't say they didn't know Messiah was going to be rejected. They didn't know the kingdom is going to be rejected. I think there's a difference between the rejection of the king and the rejection of the kingdom. I know it might sound at first blush, and unfortunately, I'm out of time unless you want to go another hour. It might sound like a distinction without a difference to reject the king. But the offer of the kingdom doesn't come until all the messianic prophecies are fulfilled. That is, the prophecies about the suffering servant and whatnot those are fulfilled before the offer of the kingdom even comes. I think even Peter on the day of Pentecost, he doesn't know anything about a rejection of the kingdom. He is proclaiming that, hey, if we repent, times of restitution will come, times of refreshing will come. Right now, it's not the kingdom of God is approaching or at hand like John the Baptist. It is. Right here is an offer of the kingdom that is presented to you. What now are you going to do with it? And the parables teach us it's going to be delayed. Now, what the parables don't teach us is what's going to happen during that delay. That's what Paul teaches us later. Hey, it's been delayed. Look what God has done. And that's the dispensation of the grace of God that we are in today. Okay, that was the advanced class. Tonight you all receive a B minus and you pass next week. He'll continue to go into parables. He said unto them, as a candle is brought to be put under is a candle brought to be put under a bushel or under a bed, or not to be set on a candlestick. There's nothing hid. He goes on, if any man have ears to hear, let him hear. We'll begin. He's going to tell some more parables and we'll build on that. But just remember, this was a long way to say the parable of the sower and the soils is to announce to Israel, you're going to reject the kingdom. And now that we have that prerequisite, we can move on next week. Let me lead us in prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you for again the gathering. Here we have tonight the parable of the sower and soils. Many of us have studied it all of our lives and we maybe have never seen this part of it. And we pray that as we chew on it a little bit and put this proposition to the test over the next few weeks, that it would prove to be either useful and true, or that we would get rid of it and back up and get it right. I pray in Jesus name, amen. Can I say one more thing? Why? Sure I can. If the parable of the sower and the soils is about the mystery of the kingdom, it's not about who's a Christian and who's not a Christian. We have placed again our thinking on that, which leads us again on this wild goose chase. And a real problem because you get that passage there, if you take it to the Christian gospel, some receive it and never have any fruit. Okay? Are they even saved? Every seminary class has had this question. Are they saved? People who accepted it, but they don't have fruit. Are they saved? If you have to have fruit, that kind of becomes this works based thing real quick, doesn't it? So I gave you a quote on the back, and that quote is from my favorite, least favorite website. Got questions? On the parable of sower on the soil. They say, to summarize the point of the parable of the sower, a man's reception of God's word is determined by the conditions of his heart. A secondary lesson would be salvation is more than superficial, albeit joyful, hearing of the gospel. Someone who is what truly saved will go on to prove it that says, if you don't have proof, you're not what? You're not truly saved. They had to pour in those adjectives, truly saved. I heard someone the other day, the other year, say something like hyphenated. Justice is no justice at all. Economic justice, social justice, racial, all these things. No. Justice is justice. You got it? You don't have to put a hyphen in it every time you hear truly saved or saving faith, as opposed to spurious faith, just dump it out. Say, they're mixing everything up there. They got it wrong. Now you can go. God bless. I hope you're truly saved. They wanted to show you. Some of them do it. You may can't really kiss it, I mean, bill, enjoy your daughter. That, um.