Latest / Reformed Thinking / Hearing the Kingdom: Mercy and Judgment in Jesus’ Parables (Matthew 13:10–17)

Transcript

Hearing the Kingdom: Mercy and Judgment in Jesus’ Parables (Matthew 13:10–17) · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome to another edition of Reformed Thinking.
• 0:03
  Today we are opening up a text that, if we're being honest, it
• 0:08
  can make a lot of modern churchgoers really
• 0:10
  uncomfortable. We're going to be in Matthew
• 0:12
  chapter 13, looking specifically at verses 10 through 17.
• 0:16
  And I say it's uncomfortable because it just, it completely
• 0:19
  flips the script on how we usually think about teaching and
• 0:22
  full specifically how we think Jesus taught.
• 0:25
  It really does. It challenges the the main ideas
• 0:28
  of what you might call the modern church growth philosophy.
• 0:31
  It's quite the reversal. Yeah, if you look at the
• 0:33
  strategy today, the goal is always, you know, accessibility.
• 0:37
  The big push is to remove barriers.
• 0:40
  We want to make the message simple.
• 0:41
  We want to make sure the seeker feels welcomed and can
• 0:44
  understand everything immediately.
• 0:45
  We want to be crystal clear. That's the prevailing wisdom,
• 0:48
  isn't it? If people aren't understanding,
• 0:50
  the assumption is always that the communicator failed.
• 0:52
  Exactly. You need to simplify.
• 0:54
  You need to be more culturally connected.
• 0:56
  The burden is entirely on the speaker to make the message
• 1:00
  consumable. And then we come to Jesus in
• 1:02
  Matthew 13, and he does something that seems frankly
• 1:07
  shocking. He has this massive crowd around
• 1:09
  him, right? The biggest possible audience.
• 1:12
  And instead of making things clearer for them, he
• 1:16
  deliberately switches his method.
• 1:18
  He starts speaking in parables. And as we're going to see, he
• 1:22
  isn't doing this to make things easier.
• 1:24
  No, he's doing it to make them harder.
• 1:26
  So much harder. And that's the real scandal of
• 1:29
  this text. We often grow up hearing that,
• 1:31
  you know, a parable is an earthly story with a heavenly
• 1:33
  meaning. We think of it as a nice little
• 1:35
  illustration to help the simple folk grasp these big abstract
• 1:39
  truths. A teaching aid.
• 1:41
  A teaching aid? Exactly.
• 1:43
  But Jesus says quite explicitly that he is using parables to
• 1:46
  conceal truth, not just to reveal it.
• 1:48
  He is in effect encrypting the message.
• 1:49
  It's a strategy of concealment. It's almost like he's putting up
• 1:52
  a wall. It is a wall.
• 1:53
  And that forces us to ask a very, very difficult question.
• 1:57
  Why would the savior of the world, the light of the world,
• 1:59
  deliberately hide the light? Why would he speak in a way that
• 2:02
  guarantees some people will not understand?
• 2:04
  That's really the mission of this deep dive.
• 2:07
  We want to understand why Jesus encrypted his message.
• 2:10
  We want to look at the the theological mechanics of
• 2:13
  hearing. We need to figure out what is
• 2:15
  actually happening spiritually when sound hits your eardrums,
• 2:19
  because it's obviously more than just physics.
• 2:21
  And to do that, we have to get into some, well, some heavy
• 2:24
  theological categories. We're going to be talking about
• 2:27
  the reformed doctrines of election, judicial hardening,
• 2:30
  and something called the divine passive.
• 2:32
  I really want to spend some time on that idea of the divine
• 2:34
  passive later because it just sounds fascinating.
• 2:37
  But at the end of the day, we're trying to answer the question of
• 2:40
  why some people see the glory of Christ and others who are just
• 2:44
  as smart and just as capable remain completely blind.
• 2:48
  It's the central question of the human condition, really, OK.
• 2:50
  So let's back up a bit before we get into the weeds of verse 10.
• 2:54
  We can't just parachute into Matthew 13 without looking at
• 2:57
  what happened right before. You've pointed out that this
• 2:59
  shift to parables didn't happen in a vacuum.
• 3:01
  No, context is everything here. If you look at Matthew 11 and
• 3:05
  12, you see this very specific narrative momentum building
• 3:10
  leading up to this moment. Jesus has not been speaking in
• 3:13
  riddles, not at all. He's been incredibly clear.
• 3:15
  I mean, think about the Sermon on the Mount.
• 3:17
  That was direct, ethical, demanding, teaching.
• 3:20
  No parables there. And he's been performing
• 3:23
  miracles, too. He's been healing people,
• 3:25
  casting out demons. The evidence has just been
• 3:28
  piling up. Piling up is a good way to put
• 3:30
  it. The light has been incredibly
• 3:32
  bright. And what was the result?
• 3:34
  It was not a mass revival. It was not the whole nation of
• 3:36
  Israel falling on their faces in repentance.
• 3:39
  It was the opposite. It was mounting hostility.
• 3:41
  In Matthew 11, Jesus pronounces these terrifying woes on the
• 3:46
  cities of Korrazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum.
• 3:51
  I want to pause on those names for a second.
• 3:53
  We read them in the Bible, then they just sound like, you know,
• 3:56
  generic ancient towns. What's the significance of those
• 3:59
  specific places? Well, this is the key.
• 4:02
  These were not hostile Roman outposts.
• 4:05
  These were not Pagan villages. This was his base of operations.
• 4:09
  This was his home turf. Capernaum was, for all intents
• 4:13
  and purposes, his headquarters during his Galilean ministry.
• 4:16
  So these are the people who saw him every single day.
• 4:19
  They saw him go to the market. They saw him interact with their
• 4:21
  neighbors. They saw the blind see.
• 4:23
  They saw the lame walk. They had a front row seat to the
• 4:25
  Kingdom of God breaking into history in their own town
• 4:28
  square. And yet Jesus says it will be
• 4:31
  more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of Judgement
• 4:34
  than for them. And Tyre and Sidon were right.
• 4:37
  These were Pagan cities, right? Notorious Pagan cities, infamous
• 4:40
  for their idolatry. Morally corrupt by any Jewish
• 4:43
  standard of the day. Wow, that's a staggering claim.
• 4:46
  He's saying the Pagan idol worshipping cities were in a
• 4:48
  better position spiritually than the religious hometown of the
• 4:50
  Messiah. He's saying they were softer.
• 4:54
  The religious cities had seen the light.
• 4:56
  Undeniable, blinding, miraculous proof of who he was.
• 5:00
  And they just shrugged. They were indifferent.
• 5:02
  That is the terrifying context. The shift to parables is not
• 5:06
  Jesus being artsy or trying a new teaching style.
• 5:09
  It's a judgement. It's Jesus closing the door on a
• 5:12
  people who had already slammed it in his face.
• 5:15
  Great light brings great accountability.
• 5:17
  They saw, but they did not repent.
• 5:19
  So the rejection is already starting to solidify in Chapter
• 5:22
  11. Then we get to Matthew 12, and
• 5:24
  it seems like we hit a real tipping point.
• 5:26
  There's a specific incident that, well, it changes
• 5:28
  everything. It does.
• 5:29
  It's the black ask for me of the Holy Spirit.
• 5:31
  This is the watershed moment. The Pharisees, the religious
• 5:34
  leaders, they see Jesus cast out a demon.
• 5:36
  This is a clear display of the Kingdom of God breaking into the
• 5:39
  world, setting a captive free. And they can't deny the miracle
• 5:43
  itself. Right.
• 5:44
  The power is undeniable. The man was clearly possessed
• 5:47
  and now he is clearly free. So they can't say he's a fraud.
• 5:50
  The evidence is standing right there, healed and in his right
• 5:53
  mind. So they have to explain it
• 5:55
  somehow. They have to explain the power
• 5:56
  source and they attribute the work of the Holy Spirit to
• 5:59
  Satan. They say he casts out demons by
• 6:02
  Beelzebel, the Prince of demons. That's just a chilling moment.
• 6:06
  It's not a misunderstanding. It's not them saying, hey, we're
• 6:09
  not sure about your theology here.
• 6:11
  It's looking at pure, unadulterated goodness and
• 6:14
  calling it absolute evil. It is settled opposition.
• 6:18
  It is murderous intent. They have made-up their minds
• 6:21
  and notice what happens immediately after this rejection
• 6:24
  in Matthew 12. In Matthew 13 verse one it says
• 6:28
  Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea.
• 6:31
  OK, I have to stop you there. I'm looking at the text and sure
• 6:33
  he walks outside or we may be over analyzing this.
• 6:36
  A guy walks out of a house to get some fresh air by the water.
• 6:39
  Is that really theology or are we just reading into the
• 6:41
  furniture arrangement? That's a fair question, and
• 6:44
  normally you'd be right. But in Matthew's Gospel, the
• 6:47
  geography is almost always a character in the story.
• 6:51
  You have to remember who Matthew was writing to.
• 6:53
  He's writing to Jews. He's writing to Jews, and for a
• 6:57
  1st century Jewish reader, the house is a loaded symbol.
• 7:02
  It represents the House of Israel, the covenant people, the
• 7:05
  exclusive family of God. And throughout the Hebrew Bible,
• 7:08
  the sea often represents chaos, the abyss, and very specifically
• 7:13
  the Gentile nations. So physically, he's just sitting
• 7:16
  on a beach. Symbolically, there's something
• 7:19
  else happening entirely. Symbolically, he is turning his
• 7:22
  back on the House of Israel that just called him Satan, and he is
• 7:25
  facing the turbulent, chaotic ocean of the Gentile world.
• 7:29
  It's a visual prophecy of what the Church is about to become.
• 7:32
  At this point, he suspends the offer of the immediate political
• 7:35
  Kingdom to Israel. That's the shift in posture.
• 7:38
  That is the shift, and that is when the parables begin.
• 7:40
  The parables are not just a random change in teaching style
• 7:43
  because Jesus got bored of sermons.
• 7:44
  They are a judicial response to rejection because they would not
• 7:48
  listen to the plain speech. Now he will speak in a way that
• 7:52
  separates the wheat from the chaff.
• 7:54
  It's the sieve metaphor. The preaching itself becomes a
• 7:57
  filter. That's right, the parables are
• 7:59
  designed to separate the humble from the proud.
• 8:01
  If you're proud and self-sufficient, the story
• 8:04
  sounds like a nice moral tale, or maybe a confusing Riddle, and
• 8:08
  you walk away satisfied but empty.
• 8:11
  If you're humble, the story confuses you in a way that makes
• 8:14
  you come closer to ask for help. And that brings us right to
• 8:17
  verse 10. The disciples interrupt him.
• 8:19
  They notice this shift immediately, the text says.
• 8:23
  Then the disciples came and said to him, Why do you speak to them
• 8:26
  in parables? I love that they interrupt.
• 8:28
  It shows they're paying attention.
• 8:29
  They're sensing a change in the atmosphere.
• 8:31
  They realize that these parables are functioning as barriers, not
• 8:34
  bridges. And notice the specific wording
• 8:37
  of their question. They don't just ask why do you
• 8:39
  speak in parables, they ask why do you speak to them in
• 8:41
  parables. Exactly.
• 8:42
  They see the gap widening. There is an inner circle, the
• 8:45
  disciples, and then there is the crowd them.
• 8:48
  The disciples are realizing that he is intentionally leaving
• 8:52
  these people behind. He's speaking in a way they
• 8:54
  cannot possibly grasp. It just exposes the tension.
• 8:59
  Jesus is the light of the world, yet he's speaking darkly.
• 9:03
  The disciples are confused because, you know, humanly
• 9:06
  speaking, you assume that if people aren't getting it, you
• 9:08
  should make it clear. You should simplify.
• 9:10
  Jesus is doing the exact opposite.
• 9:12
  Yeah. And here's the thing about the
• 9:14
  disciples, they aren't necessarily smarter than the
• 9:17
  crowd, are they? It's not like they have higher
• 9:19
  IQ's and can just instantly decode these riddles.
• 9:22
  Not at all. I mean, throughout the gospels,
• 9:24
  the disciples are often portrayed as slow of heart and
• 9:27
  slow to understand. They are not the intellectual
• 9:30
  elite of their day. The difference is not their
• 9:33
  intelligence. The difference is their posture,
• 9:36
  their location. What do you mean by their
• 9:37
  location? Well, where is the crowd?
• 9:39
  They're standing on the shore, at a distance.
• 9:42
  Where are the disciples? The text says they came to him.
• 9:45
  The act of asking the question is itself the mark of a
• 9:48
  disciple. The crowd is content with the
• 9:50
  surface story. Right, they hear.
• 9:52
  Oh, so we went out to sow nice story about farming and they
• 9:54
  move on. Yes.
• 9:56
  The disciples, on the other hand, want the meaning.
• 9:58
  They admit their ignorance and they come to the source for
• 10:00
  clarification. That's a huge point.
• 10:03
  The very act of asking is a sign of grace.
• 10:06
  It shows a spiritual hunger that the crowd simply does not have.
• 10:10
  And that leads us directly to Jesus's answer in verse 11.
• 10:13
  I would argue this is the theological fulcrum of the
• 10:16
  entire chapter. It's the hinge on which
• 10:18
  everything else turns. OK, let's look at it, he says.
• 10:20
  To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of
• 10:23
  Heaven, but to them it has not been given.
• 10:26
  This is the interpretive key. Everything else hangs on this
• 10:28
  one statement. Jesus divides all of humanity
• 10:31
  into two and only two groups. There is the you, the disciples,
• 10:35
  the elect, and there is the them, the crowd, the non elect,
• 10:39
  the hardened. And what is the defining
• 10:41
  difference between them? It's not what they did, it's not
• 10:44
  that they tried harder, it's what was given to them.
• 10:46
  The whole answer lies in the grammar of verse 11.
• 10:49
  Jesus says to you it has been given to know in the original
• 10:52
  Greek. That phrase, it has been given
• 10:54
  is one word, dado tie. Dado tie.
• 10:56
  OK, break that down for us. What are we looking at here?
• 10:58
  It's a verb in what's called the divine passive tense.
• 11:02
  We don't think about grammar much in English, but this is the
• 11:05
  theological pivot point of the whole chapter.
• 11:07
  Think about the difference between saying I learned the
• 11:09
  math versus the answer was given to me.
• 11:13
  OK, in the first one I learned I'm the one doing the work.
• 11:17
  I studied. I achieved it.
• 11:19
  I'm the active agent. You are the active agent.
• 11:22
  Jesus uses the passive voice. The disciples are the receivers
• 11:26
  of the action, not the doers. They did not figure out the
• 11:30
  parables because they were smarter or more spiritual in the
• 11:33
  guys in the crowd. They were passive.
• 11:35
  Completely passive. The understanding was done to
• 11:37
  them. It was a donation.
• 11:39
  And when the Bible uses the passive voice like this, without
• 11:41
  naming an agent, it's almost always implying that God is the
• 11:45
  one doing the acting. This is the divine passive God
• 11:47
  gave it. That is a bit insulting to our
• 11:49
  modern ego, isn't it? We like to think we chose the
• 11:51
  right path because we're clever or because we're sincere
• 11:54
  seekers. It's deeply humbling.
• 11:57
  And that's where this text just dismantles the modern popular
• 12:00
  view of free will. If understanding is a sovereign
• 12:04
  donation from God, then the person who does not understand
• 12:08
  did not simply fail an IQ test. They were not given the
• 12:10
  donation. The verb tense is significant
• 12:13
  too, isn't it? You mentioned it's not just
• 12:15
  passive. That's right.
• 12:16
  It's in the perfect tense. The perfect tense in Greek
• 12:18
  describes a past action with ongoing, continuing results.
• 12:22
  It is a settled endowment. It means this gift was granted
• 12:25
  to them. You could trace it all the way
• 12:27
  back to God's eternal decree, or at least to their effectual
• 12:29
  calling. And the state of having been
• 12:31
  given continues. It is a permanent possession.
• 12:34
  This really puts reformed theology right into the
• 12:36
  spotlight. We're talking about election.
• 12:38
  We are This text is one of the clearest and most difficult
• 12:42
  Armenian view of salvation. The popular idea is that God
• 12:45
  offers grace to everyone equally, and the deciding factor
• 12:48
  is man's free will, whether he chooses to accept it or not.
• 12:51
  But if that were true. If that were true, Jesus would
• 12:54
  have said something like to you. It is given because you were
• 12:56
  open minded, or because you chose to listen, or because you
• 12:59
  had a good heart. He doesn't say that.
• 13:01
  He doesn't say to you. It is given because you were the
• 13:03
  smart ones who really wanted it. He says the cause of
• 13:06
  understanding is God's donation, not human ability.
• 13:10
  The gift is the capacity to perceive and understand
• 13:14
  spiritual reality. Without that gift, you can hear
• 13:17
  the words, you can even appreciate the story, but you
• 13:20
  cannot grasp the reality it points to.
• 13:22
  That's just so humbling. It takes all boasting out of it.
• 13:25
  If I understand the gospel today, it's not because I'm
• 13:27
  clever, It's because I was given eyes to see.
• 13:30
  And look at what is being given the mysteries of the Kingdom of
• 13:34
  heaven. We need to clarify that word
• 13:36
  mystery. In our culture, a mystery is a
• 13:40
  Sherlock Holmes novel or something spooky and unknowable.
• 13:44
  That's not the biblical meaning at all.
• 13:45
  So what is a mysterion in the Greek New Testament?
• 13:49
  It refers to something that was hidden in the counsels of God in
• 13:51
  the Old Testament, but is now being revealed in the New
• 13:53
  Testament. It is a secret that has been
• 13:55
  brought out into the light. So not unknowable, but
• 13:59
  previously unknown. Precisely.
• 14:01
  And what is the specific mystery here in Matthew 13?
• 14:04
  It's what some theologians have called the valley between the
• 14:07
  two peaks. Think about the Old Testament
• 14:09
  prophets from their vantage point.
• 14:11
  They saw the mountain peak of the Messiah's first coming, and
• 14:15
  they saw the far off mountain peak of his final victory.
• 14:18
  Right. They expected a conquering king
• 14:20
  who would fix everything immediately, kick out the
• 14:22
  Romans, exalt Israel, establish a political Kingdom.
• 14:25
  That was the expectation. The mystery, the secret now
• 14:28
  being revealed is that there is this long intervening period
• 14:31
  between the two comings. The Messiah comes, but he is
• 14:34
  rejected. He suffers, He dies, He goes
• 14:36
  away, and the Kingdom grows quietly, mysteriously, like
• 14:41
  yeast and dough or tiny mustard seed in the ground for a long
• 14:44
  period of time. The Church Age.
• 14:46
  The church age, that's the valley they couldn't see from
• 14:49
  their perspective. And that is what these parables
• 14:51
  are describing. A Kingdom that starts small,
• 14:54
  looks unimpressive, faces opposition, but will eventually
• 14:57
  feel the whole earth to the disciples.
• 15:00
  This knowledge, this understanding is given to the
• 15:02
  crowds who just wanted a political revolutionary to give
• 15:05
  them free bread and kill the Romans.
• 15:06
  This is all just confusing nonsense.
• 15:09
  So this knowledge is not a trophy for the clever, it's a
• 15:12
  grant for the humble. Then Jesus drops this principle
• 15:16
  in verse 12. That sounds like some kind of, I
• 15:19
  don't know, scary spiritual math.
• 15:21
  It is scary. It's one of the most sobering
• 15:23
  principles in all the scripture, he says.
• 15:25
  For to the one who has, more will be given, and he will have
• 15:28
  an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has
• 15:32
  will be taken away. Let's just pause on that for a
• 15:34
  moment. On the surface, that sounds
• 15:36
  completely paradoxical. How can you take something from
• 15:38
  someone who has not? If I have $0.00 in my pocket,
• 15:42
  you can't take 5 bucks from me. It refers to a parent
• 15:45
  possession. In fact, Luke's version of this
• 15:48
  same saying is even more explicit.
• 15:51
  Luke says even what he thinks he has will be taken away.
• 15:55
  OK, So what is this principle describing?
• 15:58
  Is it a kind of spiritual momentum?
• 16:00
  It is exactly that spiritual momentum, or what we might call
• 16:03
  spiritual capital. Jesus is describing 2 feedback
• 16:07
  loops that are always at work. First, there's a positive
• 16:10
  feedback loop. For the one who has.
• 16:12
  Yes, receptivity leads to abundance because the disciples
• 16:16
  have the root of regeneration, because they have been given
• 16:19
  spiritual life. When they hear truth, they
• 16:22
  welcome it, they treasure it. And because they welcome it, God
• 16:25
  gives them more light, more understanding.
• 16:27
  It's like a plant that leans toward the sun, and so it gets
• 16:29
  stronger, which enables it to absorb even more sun.
• 16:32
  That's a great analogy. God gives more light to those
• 16:35
  who welcome the light they already have.
• 16:36
  It's not a payment for wages, it's the nurturing of life.
• 16:40
  But then there's the other side. The negative feedback loop.
• 16:42
  The negative feedback loop refusal leads to subtraction.
• 16:45
  The have nots. The have nots are those who may
• 16:48
  have proximity to the truth. They are Jewish.
• 16:51
  They live in the covenant land. They have the temple, the
• 16:53
  sacrifices, the law. They hear Jesus teach in their
• 16:57
  own synagogues. They have a lot of external
• 17:00
  religious advantages, but they don't have the root, they don't
• 17:04
  have faith, they don't have life.
• 17:06
  So even those external things, their familiarity with the
• 17:09
  Bible, their cultural religion, all that gets taken away.
• 17:12
  It does. We see this in the judgment of
• 17:14
  subtraction. Their conscience dulls.
• 17:17
  Their ability to perceive spiritual truth evaporates.
• 17:21
  They become stupider, spiritually speaking.
• 17:24
  They lose the ability to make moral distinctions.
• 17:26
  The very light they have becomes darkness.
• 17:29
  That's a terrifying thought for us today.
• 17:31
  And you could be in church every Sunday.
• 17:32
  You can have 5 Bibles on your shelf.
• 17:34
  You have all these things. But if you don't truly have the
• 17:36
  Kingdom in your heart, you end up losing everything.
• 17:39
  That is the profound danger of being religious but lost.
• 17:43
  You can have sermons but not have Christ, and eventually the
• 17:46
  sermons themselves will only serve to harden you.
• 17:48
  Which leads us to the mechanism of how this happens.
• 17:51
  Verse 13 Jesus finally explains why he uses parables.
• 17:56
  He says This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing
• 17:59
  they do not see and hearing they do not hear nor do they
• 18:02
  understand. Notice the word because he
• 18:05
  doesn't say I speak in parables in order that they will not see.
• 18:08
  He says I speak in parables because seeing they do not see
• 18:11
  the parables are a response to their pre-existing spiritual
• 18:15
  condition. They act as both a mirror and a
• 18:17
  filter. A filter.
• 18:18
  I like that. Think about it, the parables do
• 18:21
  not create the hardness in the people's hearts.
• 18:24
  The hardness is already there from their rejection of his
• 18:27
  plain teaching the parable. Simply reveal it and confirm
• 18:30
  it's. Like a diagnostic test.
• 18:32
  That's right, the crowd wanted a Messiah who would cater to their
• 18:35
  pride, their political ambitions, their desire for a
• 18:38
  spectacle. Jesus gives them a quiet story
• 18:40
  about a farmer throwing seeds. The proud person looks at that
• 18:43
  and says, this is simplistic, this is irrelevant, this isn't
• 18:46
  the conquering king I ordered, I'm out of here.
• 18:49
  The parable filters them out. It's a critique of pragmatism,
• 18:52
  isn't it? The modern church is so often
• 18:55
  told to simplify the message, to remove the offense, to win the
• 18:59
  goats, so to speak. Jesus encrypts the message
• 19:02
  specifically to judge them. He does.
• 19:05
  For the humble, the parable is a ladder.
• 19:07
  It's intriguing. It makes them stop, think and
• 19:09
  ask for help. And that very act of asking
• 19:12
  leads to illumination. For the proud, it's a wall.
• 19:16
  It seems like a simple moral tale or a confusing Riddle not
• 19:19
  worth solving. They're left satisfied in their
• 19:22
  own judgement, but they remain completely empty of truth.
• 19:26
  The brilliance of the method is that it judges the hearer by
• 19:28
  their reaction to the story. If you're annoyed by the
• 19:31
  parable, if you find it boring or beneath you, that tells you
• 19:34
  something about your own heart. It confronts the hero without
• 19:36
  catering to them. It forces a decision.
• 19:39
  Will you humble yourself and submit to the teacher to find
• 19:41
  the meaning, or will you stand over the teacher as his judge?
• 19:45
  This brings us to the prophetic diagnosis.
• 19:47
  I mean, as if this weren't heavy enough, Jesus then quotes Isaiah
• 19:51
  chapter 6 in verses 14 and 15. This is some of the heaviest
• 19:55
  scripture in the Bible. You will indeed hear, but never
• 19:59
  understand, and you will indeed see but never perceive.
• 20:02
  This is the fulfillment of Isaiah's original Commission.
• 20:05
  Remember Isaiah 6? We usually just think of the
• 20:06
  first part. Isaiah sees the Lord high and
• 20:09
  lifted up and he says, here am I, send me love that part.
• 20:12
  It's on coffee mugs. It's the classic mission
• 20:14
  conference first. But you have to read the rest of
• 20:16
  the chapter. God says go and tell this
• 20:17
  people. Keep on hearing but do not
• 20:19
  understand. Keep on seeing, but do not
• 20:21
  perceive. God commissions Isaiah to preach
• 20:25
  to a dying nation, not to spark a revival, but to seal their
• 20:29
  judgement. That is just a brutal mission.
• 20:31
  Go preach until they are completely deaf and blind.
• 20:34
  It's a terrifying concept called judicial hardening.
• 20:37
  This is a crucial theological category for understanding how
• 20:40
  God works in the world. God confirms the rebel in their
• 20:43
  rebellion. It is a righteous judgement on
• 20:46
  persistent unbelief. The classic analogy is the sun.
• 20:50
  The same sun that melts wax also hardens clay.
• 20:53
  The difference isn't the sun, it's the material it's shining.
• 20:56
  On exactly the preaching of the Word is the sun.
• 21:00
  For the disciple, the wax it softens them and makes them
• 21:03
  pliable. For the Pharisee, the clay, it
• 21:06
  bakes them solid in their unbelief.
• 21:08
  And notice the anatomy of the hard heart in verse 15.
• 21:11
  Jesus gets very specific. Yeah, he talks about the heart,
• 21:14
  the ears and the eyes. He says for this, people's heart
• 21:17
  is grown dull. The Greek word there literally
• 21:19
  means grown fat or calloused. It's a loss of moral feeling.
• 21:24
  When you ignore your conscience long enough, you build up
• 21:27
  spiritual scar tissue, You stop feeling the conviction of sin.
• 21:30
  It doesn't register anymore. The ears are heavy.
• 21:32
  They barely hear. It becomes an effort to listen
• 21:34
  to spiritual truth. It sounds like you know the
• 21:37
  teacher from the Charlie Brown cartoons.
• 21:39
  It's just noise. It becomes tedious.
• 21:40
  And then look at the eyes, the text says.
• 21:42
  And their eyes, they have closed.
• 21:43
  Yeah, that's active voice. Yes, their eyes.
• 21:46
  They have closed. This is absolutely vital for
• 21:49
  holding our theology together in proper tension.
• 21:52
  We talk about God hardening people sovereignly, but the text
• 21:56
  also clearly says they close their own eyes.
• 21:58
  So it's compatible, God's sovereignty and human
• 22:01
  responsibility. The Bible holds both truths
• 22:03
  without embarrassment. God judicially hardens as a
• 22:06
  sovereign judge, yet man closes his own eyes as a responsible,
• 22:10
  culpable moral agent. And look at that final lest
• 22:13
  class. This is fascinating.
• 22:15
  Lest they should see with their eyes and turn.
• 22:18
  And I would heal them. That almost sounds like God is
• 22:20
  afraid they might accidentally repent and he'd be forced to
• 22:24
  heal them. It seems that way on the
• 22:25
  surface, but it actually reveals the sinner's deepest motivation.
• 22:29
  Why do they close their eyes? They close their eyes precisely
• 22:32
  because they do not want to turn and be healed.
• 22:34
  Wait, who doesn't want to be healed?
• 22:35
  Everybody wants to be healed. But everyone wants to be
• 22:37
  comforted. Everyone wants relief from
• 22:39
  consequences. To be healed in the biblical
• 22:42
  sense means to be made right with God.
• 22:45
  It implies repentance. It implies changing your life.
• 22:48
  It implies submission to a new Lord.
• 22:51
  The Sinner closes his eyes because he does not want to be
• 22:53
  healed on God's terms. He wants the sickness of his sin
• 22:56
  more than he wants the cure of holiness.
• 22:58
  That hits home. We want a savior, but not a
• 23:01
  Lord. We want to take it to heaven,
• 23:03
  but we don't want holiness. So God gives them over the
• 23:06
  darkness they prefer. Judicial hardening is God saying
• 23:10
  to the rebel, Thy will be done. You want darkness?
• 23:13
  You can have it. OK, I need to play devil's
• 23:16
  advocate here because I can hear the listeners screaming at their
• 23:19
  phones right now. If what you're saying is true,
• 23:22
  that God actively hides the truth from some, that he gives
• 23:27
  the code key to the disciples but withholds it from the crowd,
• 23:31
  how is that not monstrous? It is the ultimate objection,
• 23:34
  and it's a fair one to raise. It sounds like a teacher giving
• 23:37
  a test, but he only taught the material to the front row, and
• 23:41
  then he fails the entire back row for not knowing it.
• 23:44
  That feels incredibly unjust. And if the students in the back
• 23:47
  row were innocent neutral observers, you would be
• 23:49
  absolutely right. It would be unjust.
• 23:51
  But that analogy fails because it assumes that humanity is
• 23:53
  spiritually neutral. And we're not neutral.
• 23:56
  Remember the context We just talked about Matthew chapter 12.
• 23:59
  These are not innocent students raising their hands hoping to
• 24:02
  learn. These are rebels who looked at
• 24:04
  the sheer, unadulterated goodness of God in the flesh and
• 24:08
  called it the devil. They don't want to know the
• 24:10
  teacher, they want to kill him. So you're saying the blindness
• 24:13
  isn't just a punishment, it's a confirmation of a choice they
• 24:15
  already made? It is God saying thy will be
• 24:18
  done. You do not want to see me?
• 24:20
  Fine, You do not have to see me. I will grant your wish to remain
• 24:24
  in the dark. Judicial hardening is God giving
• 24:26
  the rebel exactly what the rebel has been choosing all along,
• 24:29
  which is autonomy from God. So illumination is pure mercy,
• 24:34
  not a right. Justice would be condemnation
• 24:36
  for everyone. That's right, the not given
• 24:39
  group, the crowd, they are not innocent victims.
• 24:42
  They are guilty rebels who have already rejected incredible
• 24:45
  light. Remember the context.
• 24:47
  Matthew 11:00 and 12:00. They have seen the miracles.
• 24:49
  They have heard the wisdom of the Sermon on the Mount.
• 24:51
  They attributed it all to Satan. They are not standing there with
• 24:55
  open seeking hearts begging for truth.
• 24:57
  So God is not blocking earnest seekers.
• 25:00
  There is not a single person in the history of the world who
• 25:02
  truly, humbly cried out to God for mercy and was told, sorry,
• 25:05
  you're not on the list. The parable form, in a strange
• 25:09
  way, actually keeps the door of mercy open.
• 25:11
  How so? Because of the parable form
• 25:13
  invites inquiry. If you are humble, you ask.
• 25:15
  The disciples asked. The barrier is not the story.
• 25:19
  The barriers is your own pride. The parable simply exposes that
• 25:23
  pride. So is God unjust?
• 25:25
  No, He is perfectly just to the hardened, giving them what they
• 25:29
  chose, and He is infinitely merciful to the elect, giving
• 25:32
  them what they could never ever earn.
• 25:34
  That really reframes it. It stops us from sitting in
• 25:36
  judgement over God and puts us back in our place.
• 25:38
  It has to. Then, after all this heavy,
• 25:41
  difficult talk of judgement, Jesus pivots in verse 16.
• 25:44
  He turns to the disciples and the tone changes completely.
• 25:47
  But blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they
• 25:50
  hear. That little word but is so
• 25:53
  beautiful. There we turn from the dark
• 25:55
  hallway of reprobation into the sunlit room of sovereign grace.
• 25:58
  He calls them Blessed Mokharioy. It means a state of divine
• 26:01
  favor, of spiritual well-being. It's the same word, the
• 26:04
  Beatitudes. Blessed are the poor in spirit.
• 26:08
  It is their eyes and ears work, and Jesus makes it clear this is
• 26:12
  not by nature, but by grace. They're seeing what the entire
• 26:16
  history of redemption was leaning toward.
• 26:18
  He says in verse 17, For truly I say to you, many prophets and
• 26:22
  righteous men, long to see what you see and did not see it, and
• 26:26
  to hear what you hear and did not hear.
• 26:28
  It just think about the weight of that statement.
• 26:30
  Abraham, Moses, King David, Isaiah, these were the giants of
• 26:34
  the faith. They saw the shadows and the
• 26:36
  types from a great distance. They saw the smoke of the animal
• 26:39
  sacrifice, but they did not see the Lamb of God, who takes away
• 26:42
  the sin of the world, standing right in front of them.
• 26:44
  They saw the blueprint of the temple, but they did not see the
• 26:47
  Incarnate Word, in whom all the fullness of God dwells.
• 26:50
  They saw the peaks, but they missed the valley.
• 26:53
  They lived in the era of promise.
• 26:55
  The disciples, and by extension, us.
• 26:57
  We live in the era of fulfillment.
• 26:58
  We see the substance. We hold the completed Canon in
• 27:01
  our hands. We have the indwelling Holy
• 27:03
  Spirit to illuminate it. It really puts our own spiritual
• 27:06
  boredom in perspective, doesn't it?
• 27:09
  I mean, sometimes we treat the Bible like a chore.
• 27:11
  I had to read my chapter today. It's a profound insult to the
• 27:14
  prophets. Isaiah would have given his
• 27:17
  right arm to hold the book of Romans in his hands.
• 27:20
  David would have wept with joy to read the Gospel of John.
• 27:23
  We have it on our night stands, on our phones, gathering digital
• 27:26
  dust. That conviction leads us right
• 27:29
  into application. We've unpacked a lot of heavy
• 27:32
  theology. What does this mean for us on a
• 27:35
  Tuesday morning? First and foremost, I think it
• 27:37
  must mean the death of all spiritual pride if sight is a
• 27:40
  gift. If that were dado tie is true,
• 27:43
  then there's absolutely no room for boasting.
• 27:45
  Why am IA Christian and my neighbor is not?
• 27:47
  Is it because I'm smarter? No.
• 27:49
  Is it because I'm a better person?
• 27:51
  More moral? Absolutely not.
• 27:53
  It is only an altogether because it pleased the Father to give me
• 27:56
  the gift. Humility should define the
• 27:59
  Reformed Christian. We shouldn't be the frozen
• 28:01
  chosen looking down our noses at people.
• 28:03
  We should be the most grateful, astonished people on the face of
• 28:06
  the earth. We should just be amazed that we
• 28:07
  can see it all. What about a warning?
• 28:09
  We talked about the religious but lost.
• 28:12
  This is the most sobering application.
• 28:14
  I think it's the danger of familiarity.
• 28:16
  If you can sit in church week after week and hear the gospel,
• 28:19
  hear about the cross, hear about the holiness of God and the
• 28:21
  reality of judgement, and feel nothing, If you are bored by the
• 28:26
  glory of God, you may be in the process of judicial hardening.
• 28:29
  That is a truly terrifying thought.
• 28:32
  What's the remedy? Repent of the posture.
• 28:34
  Stop sitting in judgement over the word.
• 28:37
  Stop critiquing the preacher's style or the song selection.
• 28:40
  Come to the text like the disciples did.
• 28:42
  Humbly, desperately ask for eyes to see.
• 28:45
  Lord, I am blind, make me see. God delights to honor that
• 28:49
  prayer. What about evangelism?
• 28:52
  If God is the one who opens eyes, does that mean we just sit
• 28:54
  back and do nothing? No, but it radically changes how
• 28:57
  we do. It gives us an incredible
• 28:59
  freedom. We cannot manufacture hearing
• 29:01
  ears. I cannot argue into the Kingdom.
• 29:03
  I cannot entertain you into the Kingdom.
• 29:05
  My job, our job is simply to scatter the seed
• 29:09
  indiscriminately. We.
• 29:09
  Just throw the seed everywhere. Everywhere, on the hard path, on
• 29:13
  the rocky soil, among the thorns, and on the good soil, we
• 29:17
  are responsible for the sewing. God is responsible for the soil.
• 29:21
  This frees us from the anxiety of results.
• 29:23
  I don't have to use manipulation or emotionalism to try and close
• 29:27
  the deal. I just need to be faithful to
• 29:30
  proclaim the message. And finally, the use of means.
• 29:34
  We talk about this site being a gift, but how does God normally
• 29:36
  give it? He gives it through the Word.
• 29:39
  Don't sit around waiting for a ZAP of lightning.
• 29:41
  Don't wait for some mystical feeling to overcome you.
• 29:44
  God gives understanding through the preaching and teaching of
• 29:47
  Jesus. So attend to the preaching, read
• 29:50
  the Scripture, come to the Lord's Table, put yourself under
• 29:53
  the means of grace. The Potter of the disciple is
• 29:55
  always Lord. Explain this to us.
• 29:57
  That is the key. Keep coming back to Jesus
• 29:59
  through His word for the explanation.
• 30:01
  Never assume you've graduated. This has been a heavy, but I
• 30:05
  think a really excellent discussion.
• 30:07
  As we wrap up, I want to leave our listeners with the final
• 30:09
  thought to chew on this week. I would say this.
• 30:12
  Consider the terrifying and glorious reality that the exact
• 30:16
  same sermon can be the aroma of life to one person and the
• 30:20
  stench of death to the person sitting right next to them.
• 30:22
  It's not the speaker, it's not the acoustics.
• 30:24
  It's the soil. Every single time you open your
• 30:27
  Bible, you are standing on holy ground.
• 30:29
  You're either softening or you are hardening.
• 30:32
  There is no neutral. That is a powerful thought.
• 30:34
  Pray for blessed eyes every time you open that book.
• 30:37
  Thank you for diving deep with us into Matthew 13.
• 30:40
  It is truly a mercy to be given. Ears to hear.
• 30:42
  See you next time on Reform Thinking.