Take Care How You Listen – Part 1
Luke 8:4-21 (4-10)
June 24, 2018
This morning as we continue on in Luke’s gospel we come across
A story that I think most in here are familiar with.
Those of you who have been attending here for many years should be very familiar with it since it is one of my favorites, and one that we have referenced many times.
Most of the time when we have studied this parable we have studied Matthew’s version.
• Matthew 13 lists several parables of the kingdom and this is the first in that list.
• From Matthew’s perspective this parable is used to explain why not everyone enters the kingdom of heaven.
• From Matthew’s perspective this parable is a very encouraging parable to anyone who has grown frustrated in their evangelistic efforts.
• It explains that the problem with unbelief is not the fault of the preacher, nor is it the fault of the message, it is the fault of the evil human heart that will not receive it.
• And so Matthew seems to take much encouragement in the ministry from this parable.
Luke however, hears this parable
And he picks up on a tremendous WARNING for the people.
And that warning is simple.
It is recorded down in verse 18, “So take care how you listen”
That is what this entire section in Luke’s gospel is about.
It is a sermon on the importance of listening,
And more specifically of listening to what God has to say.
And from the time God began to reveal His word to His people
The warning has been the same. Be careful to listen to it.
Moses warned the children of Israel.
Deuteronomy 8:1-3 “All the commandments that I am commanding you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the LORD swore to give to your forefathers. “You shall remember all the way which the LORD your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. “He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD.”
• Perhaps you remember our Lord quoting that verse during His temptation in the wilderness.
• It was the reminder from Moses that nothing is as valuable as the word of God.
• You can live without bread, but you cannot live without God’s word.
We talked about this in our study of SOLA SCRIPTURA several months ago, but you must understand that GOD DWELLS BEYOND US.
If God put man on the earth, but determined not to speak
Then man would know very little of God.
Certainly we would have the knowledge of GENERAL REVELATION
That is to say there are some things you can learn about God simply from creation.
• Creation teaches that there is a creator (it came from somewhere)
• Creation teaches that there is a sustainer (someone keeps it going)
• Creation teaches grace (David saw this in Psalms 8 when he couldn’t figure
why God would give such care and preeminence to humans)
• Creation teaches the power of God (thunderstorm)
General revelation can certainly teach you some things about God.
BUT GENERAL REVELATION CANNOT TEACH YOU
HOW TO PLEASE GOD OR HOW TO KNOW GOD.
To know that, God would have to tell us.
He would have to choose to make His will known.
This is what we call SPECIAL REVELATION, and it is when God speaks.
I would certainly remind you that apart from this you could not know God.
• You could not travel far enough…
• You could not swim deep enough…
• You could not fly high enough…
• You could not look inwardly enough…
• To ever know anything about what God desires if God did not tell you.
That teaches us to value any time God chooses to make His will known.
We should listen when God speaks,
And we should listen to everything God has to say.
Well certainly in our day we are speaking about the Scripture.
God speaks to us in the Bible.
Listening to that should be our greatest priority.
Now, in Jesus’ day, God was incarnate among them.
And that means that not only did they have the Old Testament,
But they also had Jesus speaking directly to them.
Listening is of the utmost importance.
And that is what Jesus is going to teach them here in Luke 8.
Now we certainly will not get through the entire text this morning,
But we are going to begin.
We can break the entire passage down into 5 points.
#1 THE PARABLE GIVEN
Luke 8:4-8
First we recognize the context.
(4) “When a large crowd was coming together, and those from the various cities were journeying to Him, He spoke by way of a parable:”
We see that Jesus is again faced with an enormous gathering of people.
• Matthew’s gospel indicates that again the crowd was so big that Jesus got in a boat and pushed away from land.
What you have is a tremendous opportunity
To give the message that the masses most need to hear.
Think about that for a second.
Put aside fears of public speaking and all of that, let’s just assume everyone in here is a great orator.
Now, if you were given an opportunity to speak to a massive crowd.
They are going to fill up United Spirit Arena and you get to address the crowd, WHAT IS THE MESSAGE YOU ARE GOING TO GIVE?
What is it that you think the world most needs to hear?
Well, this is that message from Jesus,
He takes the opportunity to issue a very solemn warning to this crowd.
But the PECULIAR thing is that,
“He spoke by way of a parable:”
And here it is.
(5-8) “The sower went out to sow his seed; and as he sowed, some fell beside the road, and it was trampled under foot and the birds of the air ate it up. “Other seed fell on rocky soil, and as soon as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture. “Other seed fell among the thorns; and the thorns grew up with it and choked it out. “Other seed fell into the good soil, and grew up, and produced a crop a hundred times as great.” As He said these things, He would call out, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
Jesus gathers a massive crowd and the first thing He does
Is give them a lesson on farming.
Only it’s really not even a lesson on how to be a better farmer,
It’s really more of an observation about the struggles of farming.
• He doesn’t tell them how to be more efficient…
• He doesn’t tell them the secret to better crops…
He really just tells the people that farming is difficult
Because there are some very real obstacles.
We hear the story related as 4 different soil types.
We first listen to THE HARDENED SOIL
(5) “The sower went out to sow his seed; and as he sowed, some fell beside the road, and it was trampled under food and the birds of the air ate it up.”
Today we have high-tech planters that are pulled by GPS guided tractors
So that the farmer puts the seed exactly where he wants it
And at the desired depth.
But in Jesus day it was slightly less technical.
They went out with a bag of seed slung over their shoulder
And they scattered the seed out on the ground.
Inevitably some of that seed landed on the walking path.
• Walking paths are kind of a lost concept in our day too because everyone drives everywhere, but in a culture where everyone walks, there are literally paths cutting everywhere because everyone walks as the crow flies.
• I remember in college they used to put up yellow cords with stakes all over the place because college students were notorious about cutting across the grass if it would save 5 steps and before long paths where cut all through the grass.
Well that’s what happened in a field.
People were always walking through the middle of it.
(Remember Jesus’ disciples walking through that field and picking the heads of grain?)
Well when sowing some of that seed fell on that walking path
• And it either got trampled and ruined.
• Or if it set there long enough the birds would eat it.
And every farmer listening to Jesus would say, “That’s right”
And then Jesus moved on to THE ROCKY SOIL.
(6) “Other seed fell on rocky soil, and as soon as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture.”
This doesn’t speak so much to soil with a lot of rocks in it, though that could be the case, it speaks more of SHALLOW SOIL WITH A BEDROCK UNDERNEATH IT.
I’ve got a layer of bricks in my backyard by the door that someone put there years ago. Dirt covers them now, but grass doesn’t grow well there because there is no depth of soil and there isn’t much water to be had.
Well sometimes that happened to farmer as well.
The soil looked ok, it was just shallow.
Getting the seed to sprout wasn’t the problem, getting it to last was.
• There wasn’t enough moisture to be had
• When it got hot or dry, the plant that once came up withered and died.
And again every farmer listening would say, “That’s right, it’s happened to me.”
And then Jesus moved on to THE WEEDY SOIL.
(7) “Other seed fell among the thorns; and the thorns grew up with it and choked it out.”
And every farmer knew about this one too.
It’s NOT that they deliberately planted in the weeds,
But let a rain come and you’ll discover weeds you didn’t even know you had.
Our land here was virtually goat-head free in May,
But give us a few rains in June and we found out that they’re everywhere.
That happened to this farmer too.
• That soil already had a seed in it, which he didn’t see,
• When the rain came that weed grew and choked out his crop.
And again every farmer knew exactly what He was talking about.
And then the final scenario is THE GOOD SOIL.
(8) “Other seed fell into the good soil, and grew up, and produced a crop a hundred times as great.”
And of course by “good soil” he meant that
It wasn’t HARD, it wasn’t SHALLOW, and it wasn’t filled with WEEDS.
So this seed was able to take root and grow
And produce the fruit that the farmer intended whenever he planted it.
AND SO JESUS GIVES A FARMING STORY.
And then comes the sermon.
(8b) “He would call out, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
It is a peculiar sermon to say the least.
• For one it doesn’t explain what the farming story meant…
• It’s really even kind of difficult to see what it has to do with the story at all…
• And beyond that, there is no subject of reference…
That is to say Jesus tells them “to hear”
But He doesn’t tell them what they should hear.
In short, He gets this massive crowd together,
Gives them a story about the realities of farming
And then the only sermon is,
“Do you have ears? Then you should use them.”
I saw a Facebook video this week of Chris Pratt giving advice to a younger generation. He called it 9 rules to live by.
• The first was: Breathe, if you don’t you’ll suffocate
And everyone says, “Yeah, that’s obvious”
Well, listen to what Jesus said, it wasn’t a whole lot different.
“You have ears, use them”
And that’s it.
Simon Peter close us in prayer.
And there is no record anywhere that the crowd in general
Had a problem with this.
Certainly in our day we know that people would be fine with a sermon like that so long as it was short and a little funny.
THE DISCIPLES HOWEVER WERE PERPLEXED.
First, they were confused why Jesus would give such a cryptic message to the crowd.
Matthew 13:10 “And the disciples came and said to Him, “Why do You speak to them in parables?”
It must have seemed like a wasted preaching opportunity.
But more than that, they were confused because
They didn’t know what the parable meant either.
And that brings us to our second point.
The Parable Given
#2 THE PARABLE QUESTIONED
Luke 8:9-10
So we see that the disciples are digging a little deeper.
• They didn’t get it.
• They didn’t know what He was driving at.
• They understood the farming analogy, but not the point.
So…
(9) “His disciples began questioning Him as to what this parable meant.”
And I think we can widen the scope here to more than just the twelve when Luke says “disciples”. Up in verse 1 Luke referred to them as “the twelve” so the fact that Luke calls them “disciples” here seems to indicate that it’s more than just them who are curious.
What they are is the people in the crowd
Who care enough about what Jesus has to say
That they aren’t going to leave until they understand it.
Let me give you a modern day equivalent.
Daily Bible reading.
• You open your Bible to the daily passage read it, but don’t understand it.
• You don’t know what God means, or what the point is.
Do you say “Oh well” and close your Bible, check it off the list, and go on your way?
Or do you stop, pray, and ask God, “God, I don’t get this, would you help me understand?”
WELL THERE’S THE DIFFERENCE.
• Some in this crowd would come to hear Jesus, but rather or not they understood anything didn’t matter to them.
• And then there were some who did value what Jesus had to say and so when they didn’t understand they were motivated to ask about it.
AND JESUS GIVES THOSE INQUISITIVE DISCIPLES AN ANSWER.
(10) “And He said, “To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest it is in parables, so that SEEING THEY MAY NOT SEE, AND HEARING THEY MAY NOT UNDERSTAND.”
Jesus addresses the group that digs deeper, and what does He tell them?
“To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God”
Ok, I’ll tell you
WHY?
• Because they were more worthy…No
• Because they were more intelligent…No
Why? Because they wanted to know.
• And they were willing to stay a little longer and push a little deeper if that’s what it took to gain understanding of what the Lord meant.
Very early on after I was saved I ran across a passage
That dictated how I was going to read the Bible.
Proverbs 2:1-6 “My son, if you will receive my words And treasure my commandments within you, Make your ear attentive to wisdom, Incline your heart to understanding; For if you cry for discernment, Lift your voice for understanding; If you seek her as silver And search for her as for hidden treasures; Then you will discern the fear of the LORD And discover the knowledge of God. For the LORD gives wisdom; From His mouth come knowledge and understanding.”
What Solomon taught there is that there is tremendous wisdom and knowledge and understanding to be had from the Lord.
But there are prerequisites to gaining it.
• You must “receive” it.
• You must “treasure” it.
• You must listen to it or “make your ear attentive”
• You must meditate on it or “incline your heart to understanding”
• You must greatly desire it or “cry for discernment”
• You must ask for it or “lift your voice for understanding”
• You must value it or “seek her as silver”
And then you will gain what you seek.
Point being, gaining the truth of God
Goes way beyond just reading it and closing your Bible.
At times one must wrestle with God about it.
The phrase I use is “hammer at the rock”
(That’s why Sunday school teachers learn so much, they’re forced to wrestle)
WELL THAT’S THESE PEOPLE HERE.
• They weren’t content with a farming story they didn’t understand
• So they decided to stay behind while everyone else went to Dairy Queen
• To see if the Lord might explain it a little deeper.
And the Lord agreed.
“To you it has been granted”
MIGHT I REMIND YOU that the only way we understand the truth of God
Is if God grants us the privilege of understanding it?
1 Corinthians 2:11 “For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God.”
You can’t understand God’s thoughts unless God grants you insight to it.
In fact Paul goes on to say:
1 Corinthians 2:14 “But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.”
And that’s the point.
The only way you understand the truth
Is if God grants you the right to understand it.
And He doesn’t grant that right to people who won’t listen.
For all those who aren’t worried that they don’t understand it.
“but to the rest it is in parables”
MOST PEOPLE ASSUME that the parables of Jesus were like modern day illustrations. They think Jesus gave them to make the truth easier to understand.
• That’s not true.
• Jesus did not speak in parables to reveal the truth.
• Jesus spoke in parables to conceal the truth.
Illustrations only work as an aid if the truth is first articulated.
If I come up to you out of the blue and say, “It’s like watching a blind-folded monkey shoot a bow and arrow with his feet while riding a merry-go-round.”
Now, just by saying that, you don’t have a clue what I’m talking about.
Unless I first say, “Have you ever seen Lance play golf?”
Illustrations aren’t helpful until you have the point they illustrate.
Jesus here gave the parable, but not the truth behind it.
AND HE DID SO THAT HE MIGHT CONCEAL THE TRUTH.
In fact, He even gives a Scripture reference.
“so that SEEING THEY MAY NOT SEE, AND HEARING THEY MAY NOT UNDERSTAND.”
To put it another way, here is what Jesus just said.
• I gave the truth to them hidden in a parable
• So that they would be accountable for having heard the truth,
• But also so that they wouldn’t understand the truth they were given.
Wow!
Now, on the surface that might sound cruel or even counterproductive to what we assume the ministry of Jesus should be.
But let’s dig a little, especially into that passage Jesus quoted, and see if we can’t understand a little more why He gave the truth in such a cryptic fashion.
TURN TO: Isaiah 6
• Of course you recognize Isaiah 6 as that famous chapter of Isaiah’s commissioning.
• He saw the Lord.
• He repented.
• He volunteered for service with the famous, “Here am I, send me”
Then came the Lord’s mission, to which he was assigned.
(READ Vs. 9-10)
That is the same passage Jesus just quoted.
• It was a commission, not to enlighten men, but rather to prove their ignorance.
• It was a commission, not to educate men, but rather to bind them under condemnation.
And Isaiah understood the difficult nature.
Look at his question.
(READ Vs. 11-12)
Isaiah’s mission was to go and reveal to people that though they thought they knew the truth, they did not.
• Though they thought they could see, they were blind…
• Though they thought they could hear, they were deaf…
• Though they thought they could understand, they were insensitive…
It was a ministry meant to expose the blindness of men.
And that is the ministry Jesus says He is on as well.
He is preaching in parables to reveal their blindness.
But there is more that can be gleaned from the prophet Isaiah.
When we understand the condition of the people he preached to,
It helps us understand the condition of the people Jesus preached to,
Since they were comparable.
TURN TO: Isaiah 28
Isaiah 28 begins with a message convicting the sin of Judah.
(READ Vs. 1-8)
• First Isaiah confronts the “proud…drunkards”
• It speaks of arrogance and iniquity, and Isaiah assures the people that the Lord is coming to judge such sinners and set the world right.
• He also addresses the bad preaching of the day which has not confronted or corrected the immorality of Judah.
• In fact, in verses 7-8 he compares the prophets to drunkards and their sermons to vomit on the table.
It’s not what you’d call a “feel good” sermon.
Now, in typical Judah fashion the people don’t want to hear it.
(This illustrates their blind eyes, deaf ears, and insensitive hearts)
(READ Vs. 9-10)
They resent the fact that Isaiah would have the audacity to correct them and in effect ask, “Who does he think he’s talking to?”
They even mock him with their “Order on order, order on order, line on line, a little here, a little there.”
• In the Hebrew those words are all monosyllables which indicates a sort of mocking response like “nya, nya, nya, nya, nya, nya”
In short, these people don’t want to listen to the truth.
(Perhaps that helps you better understand why God commissioned Isaiah
To go and prove how blind they were)
So, notice Isaiah’s response.
(It teaches us about the dangers of not listening)
(READ Vs. 11-13)
Did you catch God’s response?
• “Fine, you don’t want to listen. The next time I speak to you it will sound like nya, nya, nya, nya, nya”
• The next time you hear the truth it will be “through stammering lips and a foreign tongue”
• “The next time you get the truth it will come to you in a language you can’t understand.”
And that is what happened.
God exiled these people into the foreign land of Babylon.
Now, there is STILL MORE here for us to see in our understanding.
Read again that verse 11, “Indeed, He will speak to this people through stammering lips and a foreign tongue.”
You’ve actually seen that verse quoted elsewhere.
TURN TO: 1 Corinthians 14:20
(stay with me, there’s a point to be made here)
• This is the chapter in which Paul addresses speaking in tongues and more specifically the Corinthian abuse of the gift.
• You may remember that all the Corinthians wanted to speak in tongues.
• Well in this chapter, Paul explains it.
(READ Vs. 20-22)
Paul gave the Biblical basis for tongues, and what does he say it is for?
It is “a sign”, he says, “not to those who believe but to unbelievers”
No, it is NOT for evangelistic purposes.
We just learned in Isaiah that receiving truth through a foreign tongue
Was a sign of God’s judgment, not of evangelism.
If God wanted to give you the truth in a way for you to understand it,
He’d send a prophet to speak clearly in your language.
But if you refuse to listen to the message when it is clearly presented
God may resort to giving you the truth through a medium
That you cannot understand.
So, if the truth is only being given to you in a foreign language, That is a sign that you are not listening when God is speaking.
(And we could say a lot more about the abuse and misrepresentation of tongues here, but you see the point)
Take Pentecost for example.
• Here is a group of Jews at the Feast of Weeks,
• When the Holy Spirit comes,
• All the guests start speaking in foreign languages.
They weren’t speaking the language of the Jews, they were speaking of the glorious works of God in their own native tongues.
It was a symbol of the judgment of God on Israel.
• The people had rejected the truth incarnate in the person of Jesus.
• They had rejected the preaching of Jesus.
• And now, they were getting the truth, but in a medium they could not understand.
AND THIS IS PRECISELY WHAT JESUS IS DOING HERE.
He is speaking in parables, which cannot be understood apart from explanation, as a form of judgment against people who do not listen.
“but to the rest it is in parables, so that seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.”
• For years these people had been ignoring the prophets which is why they
didn’t recognize Jesus when He arrived.
• For years these people had been ignoring the Law of Moses which is why
they didn’t recognize their need for Jesus when He arrived.
The people were like the people in Isaiah’s day who did not want the truth.
Isaiah 30:9-11 “For this is a rebellious people, false sons, Sons who refuse to listen To the instruction of the LORD; Who say to the seers, “You must not see visions”; And to the prophets, “You must not prophesy to us what is right, Speak to us pleasant words, Prophesy illusions. “Get out of the way, turn aside from the path, Let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel.”
And because they would not listen, now Jesus was speaking in parables.
THAT’S A PRETTY SEVERE ISSUE ISN’T?
Does that teach you anything about how serious Christ is when He says you had better listen to Him?
• He’s not offering up suggestions for you to take at your leisure.
• When Christ speaks, He expects to be listened to.
IT’S STILL A PROBLEM TODAY
2 Timothy 4:1-4 “I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.”
Do you not see it?
• Today people flock to hear motivational speakers that will assure them that God’s fullest purpose is to make you successful.
• Today people crave a new “prophetic word” or “ecstatic utterance” because they have seemingly grown bored with the Bible.
• Today people ignore Bible exposition and the labor of Bible study because it takes too long and doesn’t gratify the flesh.
It’s the same old problem of people not wanting to listen to the truth.
But what if God made it so that you could no longer grasp it?
Do you understand how severe of a judgment that would be?
Jeremiah 5:30-31 “An appalling and horrible thing Has happened in the land: The prophets prophesy falsely, And the priests rule on their own authority; And My people love it so! But what will you do at the end of it?”
• You may have no problem neglecting God’s word.
• You may actually like that the sermon is short.
• You may enjoy the fact that the preacher just gives happy illustrations.
It’s all well and good.
“But what will you do at the end of it?”
What is the final consequence of not having access to God’s word?
I’ll tell you what the final consequence is…JUDGMENT.
Because apart from God’s special revelation you cannot know Him.
(18) “So take care how you listen”
We’ll leave it there this morning and pick it back up next time.
But hopefully you are challenged to look at your Bible a little differently now.
