We are not strangers to this. I think in this auditorium we have had one of these big blackouts, and, if I remember rightly, on that occasion not only did it knock out all the pulpit lights, but then all these went as well, if you remember.
I have been in three floods. One time we had a river come right to the meeting—not here, but in another place. I have been in an earthquake—two earthquakes, actually, in meetings. So this is really nothing.
Now, my real problem is to be able to see the Scriptures. The message is in my heart, but it is being able to turn to the Scriptures and see them. So I want to read to you from Matthew 13. I am not going to read all of it; I am just going to read part of it.
From Matthew 13:10:
And the disciples came, and said unto Him, Why speakest Thou unto them in parables?
And He answered and said unto them, Unto you it is given 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 abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that which he hath.
Now, turn in the same chapter to verse 24:
Another parable set He before them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man that sowed good seed in his field:
but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares also among the wheat, and went away.
But when the blade sprang up and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also.
And the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst thou not sow good seed in thy field? Whence then hath it tares?
And he said unto them, An enemy hath done this.
And the servants say unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?
But he saith, Nay; lest haply while ye gather up the tares, ye root up the wheat with them.
Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather up first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them; but gather the wheat into my barn.
Another parable set He before them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like unto a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field:
which indeed is less than all seeds; but when it is grown, it is greater than the herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the heaven come and lodge in the branches thereof.
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 it was all leavened.
All these things spake Jesus in parables unto the multitudes.
We are going to stop for a minute.
Now, if we could turn again to Matthew 13, I will read from verse 34:
All these things spake Jesus in parables unto the multitudes; and without a parable spake He nothing unto them:
that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through the prophet, saying,
I will open My mouth in parables;
I will utter things hidden from the foundation of the world.
Then He left the multitudes, and went into the house: and His disciples came unto Him, saying, Explain unto us the parable of the tares of the field.
And He answered and said, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man;
and the field is the world; and the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom; and the tares are the sons of the evil one;
and the enemy that sowed them is the devil: and the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are angels.
As therefore the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall it be in the end of the world.
The Son of man shall send forth His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things that cause stumbling, and them that do iniquity,
and shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth.
Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He that hath ears, let him hear.
The kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hidden in the field; which a man found, and hid; and in his joy he goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.
Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is a merchant seeking goodly pearls:
and having found one pearl of great price, he went and sold all that he had, and bought it.
Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind:
which, when it was filled, they drew up on the beach; and they sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but the bad they cast away.
So shall it be in the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the righteous,
and shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be the weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Have ye understood all these things? They say unto Him, Yea.
And He said unto them, Therefore every scribe who hath been made a disciple to the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is a householder, who bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old.
Shall we just have a further word of prayer?
Dear Lord, we want to thank You that You have given us back the light and power, and made things that much easier for us. We thank You for that, Lord.
As we come to Your Word this evening, we want to tell You, dear Lord, that once again we are relying upon You entirely for that grace and power which You have provided for us, both for my speaking and our hearing.
Dear Lord, will You take the little that I have of Yourself, and will You bless it and break it and multiply it, so that all of us receive something tonight? Dear Lord, we commit ourselves to You as we come to this chapter once again, with thanksgiving, in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
Now, I do not think anybody here is unaware that the theme of this week is “The King Is Coming.” My responsibility is the parables of Matthew 13.
I had some intimation in my own spirit that there might be some problem this evening. I wondered because, when I want to talk about the mysteries of the kingdom, I am so conscious of the greatness of the subject and the littleness that I have to communicate.
I honestly wish that Brother Stephen had taken these parables. However, he has his own problems with Matthew 24 and Matthew 25. Every man has to bear his own burden, and I have got mine. So you are lumped with me on the flesh level.
The Lord is, however, greater than me, and I believe that He can take my little five loaves and two fish and bless them to every one of us.
These seven parables are divided into an introductory and foundational parable, and then two trios. The trios are, once again, split up.
One trio is one parable plus two, and the first is interpreted at the end of the three, as if it could be the key to the three. Then the second trio is two plus one, and the last one is interpreted as if it might well be the key to the last two.
Yesterday I spoke on the word of the kingdom, and I will not say any more about that other than to turn you to one Scripture that, perhaps, puts better than anything I could say the whole subject into one sentence. It is in Psalm 138:2:
For Thou hast magnified Thy word above all Thy name.
I think that is a most remarkable statement. How the Lord could ever say that He has magnified His Word above all His name, I do not know. But surely it means simply this: if we did not have the defined Word of God, we would be left to any kind of emotional experience—some of which could be false, some counterfeit, and some genuine.
But because we have the Word of God, every experience we have can be checked with the Word of God. We can come back to the Word. It is so the Lord says He magnifies His Word above even His name, because on the practical side of things the Word of God is absolutely foundational. It is absolutely essential.
We speak of the authority of the Word of God, the inspiration of the Word of God, the accuracy of the Word of God, and the relevance of the Word of God.
God’s Word is absolutely authoritative. We are not meant to manipulate it, control it, or push it into our own system of interpretation, as so many do—trying to make it say what we think it ought to say.
That is not the Word of God. The authority of the Word of God is that I come to it as someone who wants to learn, someone who wants to come under its power, somebody who wants to experience its power, somebody who wants his whole life and behaviour to be moulded by the Word of God.
The inspiration of the Word of God, in my estimation, begins in Genesis and ends with Revelation. Every single part of it is inspired, even the dark parts, even some of the long genealogies and pedigrees. They are all inspired.
I do not have any problem myself with this matter. I know many do, but I do not. I believe the Word of God is inspired. It is not left to us to decide what is inspired and what is not inspired.
The Holy Spirit has defined very clearly for us what we call the canon of Scripture. In these sixty-six books, we have that which the Holy Spirit inspired and gave to us.
That leads to the third matter: the Word of God is accurate. I cannot believe that the New Testament is more accurate than the Old Testament.
Some people tell me that the New Testament is more accurate than the Old Testament, and I always say to people, “This obviously means that God got more accurate as He got older”—which, of course, is nonsense.
As if somehow or other God got to know human beings, found out how cunning and difficult they were, and decided that He had to be more accurate. So when He came to the New Testament, He was absolutely accurate, but the Old Testament is something which you cannot really say is accurate. I cannot accept that.
If God spoke four thousand years ago, if God spoke six thousand years ago, if God spoke two thousand years ago—if it is God who is speaking—it has to be accurate. I have no problem about it.
I do not see why it should be imagined that some Jewish scribes were more dozy and stupid than Christian scribes under the new covenant. I mean, it seems so silly to me. If they were real believers and walking with the Lord, then obviously the Holy Spirit would have been watching over them as they transmitted the Word of God into written form.
But I must not spend too much time on this. I want to get on with the other. I will say one last thing: the Word of God is relevant.
I know that some of you wonder how in the world those long, drawn-out pedigrees and genealogies could be relevant to you. But, my dear friends, they are relevant. Maybe you do not understand it. Maybe you will not understand it until you are finally sitting in the presence of the Lord and He explains it to you. But you will understand that every part of it is relevant.
Because the Word of God is a whole. And because it is an interlocked whole, every part of it, in the end, is necessary to the whole. There is no part of it that I can say is irrelevant.
Now, that, to me, is the word of the kingdom. This evening I want to talk about the mysteries of the kingdom.
In Matthew 13:11, Jesus answered and said unto them:
Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.
The mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. There are a number of mysteries that we have in the Word of God. Just as examples, there is the mystery of the gospel.
Until God opens your eyes and my eyes, the gospel is so much nonsense. It is folly. It is foolishness. How in the world can anyone’s life be changed by the preaching of this gospel?
But once the eyes of your heart have been touched to behold the Lamb of God, the gospel becomes the wisdom of God and the power of God in Christ. It is the good news concerning God’s Son. It is called the mystery of the gospel.
Then there is the mystery of Christ—the mystery of God made flesh. This is called a mystery.
I do not care how many Christian theologians put their heads together and try to verbalise the mystery of the incarnation. It remains a secret. To those to whom it is not revealed, it is utter nonsense.
But when your eyes have been opened, it becomes that which you glory in: that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father. It is a mystery until God reveals it to us.
Then there is the mystery of the church. Oh, what a mess we have made of the church simply because we have never understood the mystery.
The mystery of the body of Christ, the mystery of being members of Christ and members one of another—we have institutionalised this whole thing, brought it down to a human organisation, made it a worldly club with all the normal rules of a worldly association.
Yet this church revealed in the New Testament is called the mystery of Christ. It is belonging to Him, being one with Him: He in us, and we in Him. It is a mystery until God reveals it to us.
There is the mystery of Israel. There are Christians who, for the life of them, cannot understand that God has any future purpose for the Jewish people.
Yet, in Romans 11, the apostle Paul says:
For I would not, brethren, have you ignorant of this mystery, lest ye be wise in your own conceits, that a hardening in part hath befallen Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in;
and so all Israel shall be saved.
It is a mystery until God reveals it. When God reveals it, then it makes sense. It becomes something so amazing, so marvellous.
These are some of the mysteries. There are others: mystery Babylon, the mystery of evil, and all kinds of things called mysteries.
Now that leads me immediately to ask: what is a mystery? What is a mystery?
The word mystery in the New Testament is not used in today’s popular sense. If I say something is a mystery, I mean it is complex, difficult, mystical, mysterious, impossible, really, for me to grasp. It is a mystery.
That is the popular way we use the word today. But in the New Testament, this word was used in a very special way. It was not used of something complex, fathomless, or impossible to understand.
It was used of a secret which God deliberately withheld from those He chose not to reveal it to. In other words, let me put it another way, if it does not befuddle you: it is a secret revealed to the initiated.
If you are an initiate—if you are someone introduced within a certain circle, within a certain company—this secret is revealed to you. It is yours. It is your birthright. It is yours to understand, and to understand in its completeness.
But if you are not within that circle, if you do not belong to that company, then it remains a secret. It remains something closed. This is the way that the New Testament uses this word mystery.
In other words, Jesus put it very simply. Listen again:
Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom.
That leads me to underline something else, if you are still with me and not weary after this rather strange beginning. Who is the initiate? Who is the candidate for such knowledge of these mysteries of the kingdom?
Here we make a marvellous discovery. It is immediate. First: anyone—however stupid, and there are plenty of us—however stupid, however dumb, however unsophisticated, however uneducated, who has been born of the Spirit of God.
If you, by the grace of God, have been born again—if you have been born of the Spirit of God—then you are an initiate. You are a candidate for knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom.
You are within the circle. You are introduced into the company. You are within the family of God. You are within the covenant circle of God, and He means you to understand the mysteries.
These mysteries of the kingdom are your birthright. They belong to you. They are yours to understand in their entirety. You do not have to have degrees after your name—and God forbid, even theological degrees after your name—to understand these mysteries.
The strange thing is that many theologians do not understand these mysteries, while simple people who have been born of the Spirit of God have understood something of these mysteries of the kingdom that has changed the whole course of their life.
But it is not only that you must be born again. There are two more characteristics of those who are initiates—candidates for such knowledge.
The second is this: you must be a disciple. Ah, that explains why so many Christians do not understand the mysteries of the kingdom.
We are born of God but not disciplined. We are born of God, but we are not under discipline. We are born of God, but we are not prepared to pay the price. We are born of God, but we are not prepared to follow the Lord the whole way.
If you and I want to be candidates to understand and know the mysteries of the kingdom, we must not only be born of God; we must be disciples. That is, we are under the discipline of the Holy Spirit. We are under the training of the Holy Spirit. We are being educated by the Holy Spirit. We are being discipled by the Lord Jesus.
Here is the third thing, and it comes out of this, but I add it as a third for clarity. The third characteristic is that you must be teachable.
As Brother Ernie said the other day, “Blessed are the meek; blessed are the teachable.” I was so glad and thrilled to hear that.
Especially in that kind of macho society, there is this idea that meekness is weakness. Who wants to be meek? Oh dear—spinelessness, wishy-washiness, watered-downness, pallidness, everything that is anemic. We consider that is meekness.
A person has to be almost bloodless to be meek. A person has to be virtually shadowless to be meek. A person has to be a kind of worm to be meek.
But, my dear friends, Moses was called the meekest man in all the earth. We understand from sources outside the Bible—although it is inferred and implied within the Word of God—that Moses was the great hero of the Libyan campaign and the great hero of the Ethiopian campaign, decorated a thousand times by Pharaoh.
When he saw that man fighting with a Hebrew, he slew him. Such meekness! Here was a man who was meek.
I know a little bit about shepherds; they are all around me. I have noticed one thing about shepherds of goats and sheep: they are not weak men. They live out in the open. They may be sinewy—I mean, they are not like Mr Universe to look at—but they are strong, stronger than me.
Moses was forty years a shepherd in the desert, and yet God said he was the meekest man on the face of the earth. What did He mean? He meant this: Moses was teachable.
No man is ever given to understand the mysteries of God who is not teachable. If you and I are not ready to be taught by the Lord, if we are not prepared to inquire of the Lord, if we are not prepared to seek the Lord, we shall never have an understanding of these mysteries.
Look, for instance, at Isaiah 66:2:
For all these things hath My hand made, and so all these things came to be, saith the Lord: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and that trembleth at My word.
Look at verse 5:
Hear ye the word of the Lord, ye that tremble at His word.
Now come back to the parable of the sower. When the seed fell on good soil, what did Jesus say? He said, “This is he that heareth the word, and understandeth.” It is the very same thing.
You only really hear the Lord when you have that contrite spirit, that broken spirit. An arrogant spirit, a proud spirit, a haughty spirit—a spirit that says, “I am going to understand this, I am going to get hold of it, I am going to analyse it, I am going to tear it apart, and I am going to put it together again”—this kind of person is left with systems, biblical doctrine, and interpretation, but he never understands the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.
God always takes the one who has a teachable spirit, a meek spirit, like Moses, who fell on his face before the Lord again and again. In spite of all the Lord had shown him, in spite of all the law that God had given him, whenever a problem came up he fell on his face before the Lord, as if to say, “I do not know how to apply it, Lord. I know it all; You used me to write it. But I do not understand how to apply it. Help me to apply it, O Lord.”
I think in the New Testament of the Gospel of John, chapter 7, verse 17. Oh, what this meant to me. You remember I mentioned that Swedish aunt yesterday. This is a verse she gave me right at the beginning when I was first saved, and it burnt its way into my heart.
Listen to this:
If any man willeth to do His will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it be of God.
I do not know whether that means anything to you, but when I was only twelve years of age, that word burned its way into my heart. I understood that if God is going to reveal anything to you, you have to be willing to do His will, whatever the cost of the revelation He gives you, whatever the cost of the light He entrusts you with.
If you are not willing to do the will of God, you will never know whether God is really saying something. But once you are ready to do the will of God, then the mysteries of the kingdom are given to you. Then the mystery of the church is revealed to you. Then the mystery of Israel is revealed to you. Then the mystery of the gospel is revealed to you.
Then there can be a whole succession in your education by the Spirit of God, when you maintain this willingness to do the will of God.
Let me add yet another Scripture, if this is meaning anything to you: James 1:5. This is the other Scripture that this dear Swedish aunt gave to me.
Is it not interesting? I do not know why she is having her day now. I expect the Lord will tell her that we are talking about it down here. But it seems that she is having her day.
Listen; this is another one she gave to me:
But if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, Who giveth to all liberally and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
But let him ask in faith, nothing doubting.
She apparently thought I was stupid. And I was actually ready to accept that I was, because I had never read the Bible when I was twelve years of age. I did not have any of that kind of attitude: “Well, I know it all. I have gone to Sunday school. They have pounded it into me from the very first day I was born. I know it.”
I never had any of that. So when she inferred that I might be unwise when it came to these things, I understood her.
I used to ask the Lord every day, when I was a kid from twelve until I was fifteen. Every single morning, I quoted this Scripture, standing on it: “Lord, I do not have any wisdom. Would You please give me this wisdom that You say You will give in James 1:5?”
Now, is that not right? Is that not marvellous? Listen to the Word again. Let me say it again: if any man lacks wisdom, do you lack wisdom?
You might have been to theological seminary, but you might lack wisdom. You might have been right through a whole Bible school, but you might lack wisdom. You might be a church member for many, many years, but you might lack wisdom.
If any man lacks wisdom—wisdom from above—let him ask of God, Who gives to all men liberally and upbraids not, and it shall be given him, if you ask in faith, nothing wavering.
A teachable spirit—a teachable spirit.
When the Lord said to Solomon, “What do you want, Solomon?” He knew all the problems Solomon was facing. He had interfamily rivalry, all kinds of ambitious brothers and ancestors, all of whom had a finger in the pie, all kinds of problems in the kingdom. His father had gone.
God came to him in the night and appeared to him, saying, “Solomon, what do you need? Ask Me.”
Solomon could have said, “Lord, I need power—power, show, and authority—so I can put down every rebellion.” He could have said, “Lord, I need riches to impress these people, so that they can see my pomp and my wealth.” He could have said, “Lord, I want You to uphold my status, so that they all see that I am Your anointed servant, Your anointed king. I need this for Your service, Lord.”
He could have said a thousand and one things, but he said, “Lord, I want wisdom.” And God—may I put it irreverently?—fell over Himself. He said, “Solomon, because you have asked for wisdom, I will not only give you wisdom, but I will give you authority, power, riches, status, peace—I will give you everything, because you asked for wisdom.”
A teachable spirit. To those who are born of God, who are disciples, however weak and failing, and who have a teachable spirit—to these it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.
Now, may I take this matter one step further, if you are still with me? I want to underline the necessity of revelation.
Yesterday I spoke about studying the Bible, reading the Bible, getting to know your Bible. All that is absolutely important. But now I want to add something more today.
You need illumination. You need revelation. You need, to put it in another word that we often use in our circles, vision.
Now, I do not mean visions. I have nothing against visions. But I am talking about understanding: the eyes of the heart opened to behold the Lord, to understand the Lord. Eyes of the heart that really are clear. There is a singleness of vision; there is no double vision.
Is it not interesting, in the Ephesian letter, in those well-known words in chapter 1, verses 17 and 18? The apostle Paul is dictating this letter.
Most Bible commentators say that Ephesians is the high-water mark, the high-tide mark, of revelation in the New Testament. Not everyone would agree, but most commentators say that.
Within this one letter is compressed the whole revelation of God’s eternal purpose from eternity to eternity. Here is the apostle: he has a chain; he is imprisoned, under house arrest if you like, and he is dictating to a faithful secretary.
Then all of a sudden he says, “I think we should have a word of prayer.” He stops and says, “Do you think we should pray for these folks?”
Maybe the secretary—that dear brother, or whoever it was—said, “Pray for what?” I have a very fertile imagination.
Perhaps the apostle would say, “Look, I am so afraid this is going to be just sermon material. I am so afraid this is just going to remain in the area of doctrine—our teaching.”
“Let us pray that a spirit of wisdom and revelation may be given to them, the eyes of their hearts being enlightened, that they may know what is the hope of their calling.”
Not that they may know about it, but that they may know it directly. The Word leaps, as it were, into them. It brings divine light to them. In His light, they will see light, as the psalmist says.
What a difference it makes when a spirit of wisdom and revelation is given to us. We can know something all our lives, and then, when the Lord reveals it to us, it becomes ours.
Perhaps it is something to do with the work and person of the Holy Spirit. We have sung about the Holy Spirit, read about the Holy Spirit, studied about the Holy Spirit, and heard messages on the Holy Spirit.
But never anything happens to us until the day we see that, when Jesus ascended, He took the promise of the Father and poured Him forth. In the moment we see with the eyes of our heart, we step into what is ours, and the most glorious experience of the Spirit becomes ours.
Take the question of the cross. We can know that Paul said:
I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me: and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, Who loved me, and gave Himself up for me.
We can know it. We can know that he says our old man was crucified with Christ, that the body of sin might be done away, so that we might walk in newness of life.
We can know it all, but oh, when that spirit of wisdom and revelation is given to us, and in that day we suddenly see that when Jesus died, I died; that in Him on the cross I died; and when He was buried, I was buried; and when He was raised, I was raised to walk in newness of life—it becomes my own experience.
For the first time I can reckon myself dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ. Until then, it is make-believe.
Oh, I remember when I was younger in the Lord, and I had such a problem with myself. I did not know how to come through, and I went to a brother. He said, “Pinch yourself.”
I was fifteen years of age. I thought he was crazy. He said, “Go on, pinch yourself.” I pinched myself. “Do you feel something?” “Yes.” “Now,” he said, “pretend you are dead.”
I looked at him. He said, “You must reckon yourself dead. Pinch yourself every time; say every time you feel it, ‘No, I am dead.’”
But it did not work, my dear friends. It did not work.
I have always told you about Bob Mumford, who said he had an experience of the Holy Spirit and thought he died with Christ, until he discovered he had only fainted.
My dear friend, it does not work. It is make-believe. It is pretending, trying to kid yourself that you are dead. Some people understand “reckon yourselves dead” as though you must, in a Christian Science way, mind over matter, pulverise yourself down until, in the end, you have deadened yourself.
But, my dear friend, it does not work. I tell you from my own experience. But in the day that the Lord revealed to me, on my knees, in another situation altogether, He showed me. He said to me, “When My Son was crucified, you were crucified with Him.”
It went into my heart. I had never heard such a thing. I knew I had read it, but I never knew such a thing.
I got up from my knees. For the first time, I could reckon on it. I knew that Jesus died. Yes, Jesus had died. When did He die? Two thousand years ago. So I died with Him two thousand years ago in the sight of God, and I could reckon on it. It came to me as a revelation. Then it became mine.
Do you understand what I am trying to say? I am just trying to say that you can, like a good Buddhist, learn the Scripture. I am all for your memorising the Scripture and learning truth; that is what I talked about yesterday.
But now I want to say that Scripture will never become flesh and blood in you until the spirit of wisdom and revelation is granted to you. In that moment, when that spirit of wisdom and revelation is granted to you, you will know not about something, but you will know it.
You will know the mystery of the kingdom. You will know the mystery of being crucified with Christ. You will know the power and person of the Holy Spirit, the mystery of His work. These things will be yours. No one can ever take them away. They are yours forever.
So you begin to understand the vital importance, in the light of the King’s coming, to have such vision, such understanding, such revelation.
If I understand the prophetic Word at all, I understand that these last days into which we are entering are going to be filled with multitudinous Christian voices telling us one thing and another—fixing dates, telling us this is going to happen on this day and that is going to happen on that date.
Some tell us we are going to have great affluence and prosperity. Others tell us we are going to have much war, trouble, and impoverishment. Some tell us this; some tell us that. Some tell us the Lord is not coming back for another thousand years, that the church has got to Christianise the whole world before the King comes.
So it goes on: this voice, that voice, this voice, that voice—thousands of voices all saying, “He is here. He is there. He is over there. He is here.” In the end, everyone will be so confused.
No wonder we turn away from prophecy. No wonder we say, “Let us leave the whole thing; it is a mess.”
My dear friend, we need revelation. We need understanding.
We shall not be dogmatic in our interpretation of prophetic events, except upon those matters upon which we can be truly dogmatic. But we will be prepared, because revelation always brings us to preparation.
Every time I see the Lord, I know there are areas in my life that need to be corrected, areas in my life that need to be dealt with, areas in which I need to be strengthened, areas in which I need new faith to possess.
Before I talk about these parables, one third thing. Our Lord said something which has upset some Christians so much:
For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that which he hath.
Oh dear. Some people get so upset with this that they feel it is capitalism. “What in the world is this? Someone who has gets more, and those who have not, even what they have got is going to be taken away. What did He mean?”
He meant this: if you are born of God, you have a right to understand the mysteries of the kingdom. When that revelation is given to you, you will have more and more and more and more.
You will enter into the land, as it were, and possess it more and more and more. The more you have, the more you will take; and the more you take, the more will be given to you.
Dear child of God, this matter is important.
Now let us look at these mysteries of the kingdom. First of all, I do not think we have all the mysteries of the kingdom. That is my view. It may be my own personal view. I think there are many more, but our Lord gave us certain foundational, fundamental understandings in these seven parables.
The first, I understand, is in the parable of the sower. This is what I call the mystery of the Word of God.
Everything begins with God’s Word and ends with God’s Word. Everything.
Your salvation began with the Word of God:
So belief cometh of hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.
The apostle speaks about those who go forth to preach that good news. So that is how it began. Even if we never knew the Bible, even if we had never read the Bible, even if we had never heard much, nevertheless, it began with the Word of God.
Everything in your life continues with the Word of God. Is it not so? Take the whole area of sanctification. I can only touch on these things, you understand, but take the whole matter of sanctification. Is it not all to do with the Word of God?
Surely it has to be. When something in the Word of God is revealed to us, then we enter in, and in that moment we experience what we have read. The Word of God.
Actually, if you take it on the bigger scale, everything else on the universal scale begins and ends with the Word of God. This universe came through the Word of God. We read about it again and again: God said, and it was. It was the Word of God.
Peter says in his letter that this whole world came into being through the Word of God. He speaks of the flood by the Word of God. Then he says there is coming a fire that is going to burn everything up, and it is reserved by the Word of God.
It is a great comfort to me to know that everything in history is related to the Word of God. It begins with the Word of God, it proceeds with the Word of God, and it is going to end with the Word of God: a new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness, by the Word of God.
Satan, in the end, is going to be shrivelled up by the Word of God. It says in Thessalonians:
Whom the Lord Jesus shall slay with the breath of His mouth.
One word, Martin Luther said, will fell him. Oh, I find this very exciting. This whole thing begins with the Word of God; it ends with the Word of God.
Think about God’s work of redemption. Does that not begin with the Word of God? Think of the Lord Jesus. Do you remember when the angel of the Lord appeared to Mary what he said to her?
After speaking of the Holy Spirit, he said:
For no word from God shall be void of power.
I think of the work of our redemption on the cross. Jesus spoke seven words from the cross. But there is one word that, to me—and only one word in both Hebrew and Greek—Jesus uttered at the end of His travail on the cross.
At the end of the three hours of forsakenness and darkness, when the Lamb of God became the uplifted serpent, when that serpent and its poison entered into the purity of the Lamb of God and God smote Him, out of His tortured, agonised heart came the words:
My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?
The whole earth became dark. People who do not understand these things tell us it was an eclipse, because they always have to have some scientific explanation of these things. I do not know what is wrong with them, but they always have to find something explicable in terms of a person’s understanding of science.
But no eclipse could last three hours. It is impossible.
Something happened in that moment when Jesus became sin that drove a horror to the One in Whom all things hold together. In that moment, it was as if the very light in the universe faltered, as if God Himself shuddered.
We shall never understand it, except that in that moment Jesus won for us an eternal salvation. We will never understand it. I do not care how long we live; throughout eternity we will never fully understand it, because we are finite creatures. We will never be infinite.
Then Jesus cried one great cry. It was not a tortured cry. It was not an agonised cry. It was not, as some people think, “It is unfinished.” It was a voice of triumph:
It is finished.
In that very moment, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. Now we are told in the Talmud that the veil of the temple was seven hands thick.
Can you imagine the priests and Levites on duty that day? No wonder a great company of priests believed, it says in the Book of Acts. I expect it all began with those on duty that day, in their courses, busying themselves with polishing the brass and all the rest in the sanctuary. Suddenly, they looked up.
Oh, blasphemy! Blasphemy! For any Jew to see the veil of the temple torn—not from the bottom to the top, but from the top to the bottom. The way was flung open. The way into the presence of God was open for sinful man.
The finished work of the Lord, my dear friend: one word, one word uttered by the Lord Jesus—the Word of God in His mouth. It went through the whole universe like a trumpet call, like a clarion call: eternal salvation for all who will put their trust in God through Him.
I could go on and on. I could talk about the redemption of our body. That is going to be by the Word of God, is it not?
When the Lord will descend with a shout—oh, I would love to know, what is He going to shout? Just the word that will be in His mouth—when the dead in Christ shall rise first, and then we who are alive and remain will be caught up to be with them, to be forever with the Lord.
When, in the twinkling of an eye—think of that; have you ever seen an eye twinkle?—in the twinkling of an eye our bodies shall be changed, and the corruptible will put on incorruption, and the mortal immortality.
A shout from the risen Messiah, from the glorified King, from the coming King: a shout, one word, and our bodies changed in an instant. The dead whose bodies have gone to dust, mouldered for thousands of years, in an instant raised incorruptible.
How some people say, “Well, I do not believe this. There must be a scientific explanation for it. The Lord cannot just bring bodies together like that.”
My dear friends, according to my gospel, God spoke and this whole universe came into being. If God spoke and there was light, and God spoke and there was water, and there was a firmament between the waters above and the water underneath; if God spoke again and the sun and moon came into being; if God spoke again and vegetation came on the earth; if God spoke again and things began to fly in the heavens and things began to swim in the sea; if God spoke again and created Adam, and created you and me as human beings—if He could do all this through His Word, can He not, with one single word, redeem our body? Of course. It is a small thing.
He has done all the rest with one word. A shout! He shall descend from heaven with a shout and the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise.
Well, I must watch it. I do not mean that if the Lord shouted now, there would be no more need for me to explain to you the mysteries of the parables.
I want to tell you that this whole matter of the church’s recovery, even if in a small remnant in the last days, is to do with the Word of God.
Every single great movement of the Spirit in the history of the church has begun with a rediscovery of the Word of God—of the authority of the Word of God, the accuracy of the Word of God, and the relevance of the Word of God.
In every one of these great movements of the Spirit, it has been the measure in which the Word of God has been given its place that has dictated how long that move of the Spirit continues in power and purity.
As soon as the Word of God becomes, as it were, familiarised, it becomes sacred Scripture; it becomes liturgy. The move of the Spirit is finished.
It seems to me quite clear that this mystery of the Word of God has a message for us in the last days, when there is going to be so much apostasy. We need to understand the Word of God, to be witnesses for the Word of God, as well as hold the testimony of Jesus.
I believe, too, that with Israel it is the same. Because God spoke a word concerning my people: “I have blinded them.” And He has done a very good job.
All down through the years, except for just a few here and a few there, our people have read the Scriptures, studied Isaiah 53, studied Psalm 22, studied Zechariah 12, and never seen the Messiah.
Sometimes they have described the Messiah in such terms that you think it is Jesus, and yet they never saw Him. It was a word. It was a word from the Lord. God blinded.
Paul wrestles with this whole great problem. He says:
Did they stumble that they might fall? God forbid: but by their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles.
I am not going to spend any time on this except to say this: there will come a day when the Word of God will come back to that people in power and in life. Then the hardening in part which has befallen them will be melted, the veil on the mind will be torn away, and the blindness that has come to their eyes will be turned into radiant vision.
To me, it is like our greater Joseph. He was sold into slavery by His own brethren, rejected by them, and went into Egypt. He went down into the dungeon, went down as far as He could, and then God raised Him up and made Him Saviour of the Egyptians, so that He became the One through Whom all the Gentiles were saved.
Yet His own people knew Him not. When they came to Him under the pressure of hunger and famine, He hid His identity from them. They stood in front of Him, and He was an Egyptian. He was dressed like an Egyptian, spoke like an Egyptian, culturally He was an Egyptian, His wife was an Egyptian, and He had an Egyptian palace. They never saw their brother.
Not in their wildest moments did they ever, for one single moment, think that it was their brother Joseph.
Then He trapped them. It is too long a story, but He trapped them bit by bit, cornered them. That is what He is doing today. That is why we are in such trouble. He is cornering us.
He put the money in the sack and made us all up for it. He put the silver cup in the sack. He has got His Benjamin as hostage. Those of us who are Jewish and who found the Lord are His Benjamin, held hostage until the rest come.
There will come a day when He will say, “Put all the Egyptians out of the house,” and will say to them in Hebrew, “I am Joseph, whom you sold.” I do not know when that day will be, but it will be by the Word of God. That is all I know.
When that day comes, if the casting away of them was the reconciling of the world, what will the receiving of them be but life from the dead?
But I must move on. There are two more trios. Let us very swiftly look at them.
Here is the first trio. You have one: the tares and the wheat. Then it is followed by the mustard seed that grew into a tree. Then it is followed by a woman putting leaven into three measures of meal.
It is interesting that our Lord interprets the parable of the tares, as if this is the key to the other two parables as well.
These tares are what we call bearded darnel. Bearded darnel is exactly like wheat. When it grows, it looks like wheat until it gets to a certain height. It is only in the very last stages that it is clear that it is tare.
Here is another problem: bearded darnel has a very strong root system, and the wheat does not have such a great root system. So the darnel goes into the roots and all through them. That is why you cannot pull up the tares; if you do, you pull up the wheat with them.
If you understand a little bit about that parable, then you begin to understand the Lord’s interpretation: the sower is the Son of man; the good seed are the sons of the kingdom; the bad seed are the sons of the evil one.
What is the Lord saying here? He is dealing with a problem that every child of God has wrestled with, particularly those who have been involved in suffering.
Why does God not tear up the tares? Why does He leave evil people in position? Why does He allow darkness, evil ideology, people, and personalities to go on?
Now, my dear friend, this is not the church. You do understand this, do you not? I have heard so many interpret this as the church: the Lord is saying to let the unsaved and the saved in the church grow together.
The Lord Jesus said, “The field is the world,” not the church. He is dealing with the whole problem of good and evil interacting and counteracting.
I can only imagine that our brothers and sisters who have suffered in Russia, in Eastern Europe, in Mongolia and China, must many a time have thought, “Why does God not deal with it?”
When you hear of people buried alive—I know of one person who was crucified and spent three days dying—you wonder, why? Why does God not strike such people dead, especially when you find out that those people who do it die peaceably in their beds years later?
You wonder, what is the justice in this whole thing? Why does God not do it? But we have to remember Romans 8:28:
And we know that to them that love God all things work together for good, even to them that are called according to His purpose.
So, my dear child of God, I believe we are dealing with something we do not fully understand. Why does God allow Stalin? Why does He allow a Hitler? Why does He allow a Mao Tse-tung? Why does He allow these evil people?
Why does He allow them to grow like great trees? Why does He allow them to do so much evil? Why do they almost stamp out the work of God? In some amazing way, God is using the evil to perfect the good.
We shall never understand that. But at the end, the whole thing will be sorted out. When the harvest comes, those who are born of God and have walked with God will shine like the sun in the kingdom. Those who have been the tares will be gathered into bundles and burned in everlasting fire.
I do not know whether that means anything to you, because in America you do not have quite the same problem. Maybe it will come.
This parable of the tares means nothing to people who live in an ordered society, where there are evil people around and they wonder why they prosper, but they are not persecuted. They do not generally lose their lives because of them.
But when you are face to face with this kind of evil, and it seems triumphant, universal, and all-powerful; when somehow all hell is let loose; when it is an hour of evil that comes upon even the children of God—then you can be filled with a million questions.
God is interested in a harvest, and He will not pull up the tares and injure the wheat. He is preparing people for eternal service.
Now there are two other parables. There is the mustard seed, and there is the leaven. I have to tell you straight away that I have great problems with the mustard seed. I do hope I shall be asked back to speak.
I have enormous problems with the mustard seed because, living in Israel, we have a little seed that is the smallest of all seeds. It is so small that when you have it in your hand—you could have up to a hundred of them there—and those in the front would hardly be able to see them.
This little seed grows into a tree. I have them growing all around where I live. It is called the mustard tree. It grows to fourteen feet, normally ten feet, but it grows.
Now, what did Jesus mean? One interpretation is this: you are all, in the West, acquainted with the mustard that only grows to that height. So how does a mustard seed grow into a tree or a bush? You say, “Well, it has to be abnormal.”
Then the interpretation is that something has happened to the church. The institutional church is not what God planted. Something has gone horribly wrong. Then we are told all the birds of the air, which are always a symbol of the powers of darkness in the Bible, come to lodge in the branches.
Now I have a problem. People who believe in this interpretation say that this mustard tree was not here in the land in the time of Jesus; it comes from Madagascar, they say.
They said the same thing about the apple tree. Now we have found pips near En-gedi in an old cave from the time of Bar Kokhba, so we now know there were apple trees in the time of Jesus, according to the Song of Solomon, you remember. They all said it was an apricot; it could not be an apple tree. Some still say those things in the face of the truth.
Now I want to explain something. When Jesus gave the interpretation of the tares, it is obvious, to me, that this is the key to this trio.
I want to tell you what is abnormal. You do not have to accept what I say, because there are plenty of others who give another interpretation. But the abnormal thing about the mustard tree is the birds lodging in its branches.
I have never seen a nest in a mustard tree. I have never, ever seen birds even roosting in a mustard tree.
You all know I am very interested in birds. I have two cockatoos, two parrots. We keep some birds outside the window and a thousand other things, so I am always interested in birds. I have never seen birds in a mustard tree.
This is how I understand it. God is speaking about something that has grown, and into that have come the powers of the prince of the air, the powers of darkness. They have lodged in that thing. They should not be there. They do not belong there. They have nothing to do with it, but they are there.
If you read Ephesians 2:2:
Wherein ye once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the powers of the air, of the spirit that now worketh in the sons of disobedience.
Do we not have to say, when we look at church history, that we see this again and again and again? The spirit that works in the sons of disobedience coming to lodge amongst the sons of light. Something is horribly wrong.
When we come to the parable of the leaven, there we are clear. Everywhere you look in the New Testament and the Old Testament, leaven is a symbol of evil. It is a symbol of sin.
If you take your Scriptures, very briefly, look at Matthew 16:6:
Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.
The Pharisees and Sadducees are very interesting. Very rarely are these groups understood in Christian circles. Pharisees are always looked upon as hypocrites, and yet the Pharisees were Puritans.
The very word in Hebrew means Puritan. Simon the Just, who founded them, was one of the godliest men in the four hundred years of silence between Malachi and Matthew.
If it had not been for the Pharisees, the whole work of God amongst His people would have been assimilated into Hellenism. They were wonderful people, godly people. They went back to the heart of the matter. They were fundamentalists.
They believed in the authority of God’s Word. They believed in a kingdom that was to come. They believed in a Messiah.
Quite different to the Sadducees. The Sadducees were academics, upper-class, liberal theologians. They did not believe in life after death. They did not believe in the inspiration of the prophets. They had questions about the Word of God.
Here you have the leaven. What is the leaven of the Pharisees? Legalism.
My word, that says something for church history, does it not? Every single move of the Holy Spirit has ended in legalism, has it not?
It does not matter where you turn. In the whole history of the church, every move of the Spirit, after so many generations, has become an outward show, a system.
And liberal theology—my word, that is leaven. What that has done within the kingdom of God and to the kingdom of God.
I could give you many more Scriptures on this matter. I think of the words of the apostle Paul, by inspiration of the Spirit:
A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.
Purge out the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, even as ye are unleavened. For our Passover also hath been sacrificed, even Christ.
Is that not interesting? There is a very interesting little vision in Zechariah of a lady who hides leaven in an ephah. An ephah was the meal offering, and you were never allowed to put leaven in it.
Interestingly, the last picture we have of this woman is that she becomes two women and flies away with the wings of a stork to Babylon. I find that very interesting.
Martin Luther talked about the Babylonian captivity of the church. I wonder whether here, in this little parable, we have something right at the beginning: something was hidden in.
Do you know that in every single movement of the Spirit of God in church history, almost at its inception, an enemy has inserted leaven? The leaven has worked and worked and worked until it takes over the whole.
I always say the job of shepherds is to see that no leaven gets into a work of God, for once it is in, it is very hard to get it out.
Well, I leave these three parables. I feel I have only my five loaves and two fish—just a little for you.
Here are the last trio. Jesus spoke the last trio privately, and I think that is interesting.
One is of a man who found a treasure. This is a very interesting little story. He just told the story: a man found a treasure and hid it, then went off and bought the field.
Well, we know something about that. He was clever. He found a very valuable treasure, hid it, and then went off and purchased the whole field so that he could get the treasure.
Another man was a merchant seeking pearls, and he found one pearl of unbelievable excellence. The price was colossal. He must have wrestled with it for some time, and finally he sold everything he had to buy that one pearl.
Jesus does not interpret either of these, but then He tells us a quite different story. He says the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet that was put into the sea, and all kinds of things got caught in it—fish, bottles, and all kinds of weird things.
They pulled the whole lot in: good fish, bad fish, and rubbish. They sat down and began to sort it all out. The good fish they put in barrels, and the bad fish they threw away, normally used for fertiliser.
Then He interprets the last one. Now, if you compare with me for one moment, and I will be finished: there is an enormous difference between fish—even good fish—and treasure and pearl, do you not think?
Is it not a strange association, to bring together treasure, pearl, and good fish?
I understand that this is the mystery of God’s persevering love and grace. He is seeking to fish in the whole with as wide a sweep as possible, so He can get the good fish.
But, my dear friends, that is not the end of the story. What He is really after is treasure. He is after pearl.
Now, is it fanciful of me to point out to you that the city of God, the bride, the wife of the Lamb, is made out of treasure—precious stone and pearl?
How does that mean that the Lord Jesus laid down His life for all, that He might obtain the bride? He bought the whole field in order just to get those who would go the whole way with Him and become the treasure.
Treasure, you know, is not automatic. I think you know that. Jesus said to the church at Laodicea:
I counsel thee to buy of Me gold refined by fire, that thou mayest become rich.
What did He mean? This gold of His nature, this gold of His life, was given by His grace to us as a free gift. So why does He say, “I counsel thee to buy”? The price is experience—costly experience.
That gold of the life of Christ never becomes ours until we experience deep things. Sometimes it costs us everything.
Oh, dear child of God, think of this for a moment. Here you have the persevering love and grace of the Lord Jesus. He is this merchant man seeking that pearl, and He finds this pearl of extraordinary excellence. It cost Him everything to get that pearl.
Here is the Lord Jesus, and He finds this treasure that He has been seeking, as it were, through His life. He hides it and buys the whole field, that He might get that treasure. It cost the Lord Jesus everything.
Now, is it wrong of me to suggest to you that if you are going to become that treasure, out of which He will build the city, out of which He will form the bride—if you are going to become that pearl, out of which the gates of that city are going to be formed—it will cost you everything?
Here is the mystery of the kingdom of heaven.
I remember an old hymn from my early days as a believer, and it had one little line that has always stayed with me:
Those that trust Him wholly find Him wholly true.
I do not know how much treasure there is in you, how much pearl there is. I only know this: precious stone is formed in the darkest places of the earth by enormous fire, heat, and pressure.
I only know this: a pearl is formed by a bit of worthless grit that falls into the softest part of the clam, and the whole life of the clam is mobilised to eject it.
Each time, a coat goes around the grit—one coat, and another coat, and another coat—until there is a pearl.
Dear child of God, to get this precious stone, this gold, this treasure, and this pearl, God sometimes uses tares. Sometimes He uses evil to drive us to an understanding of the worthlessness of our lives apart from Him, and the brevity of our lives.
To bring us to an understanding of that word:
For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and forfeit his life?
And then are the mysteries of the kingdom.
I wish that you had had someone else who could have interpreted these parables more fully and more powerfully than I. I can only give you the little I have got from the Lord on these—what I call my five loaves and my two fish.
I know that the Lord can bless these five loaves and two fish, break them, multiply them, and do something in all our lives that will be wholly to His glory.
Shall we pray?