Eyes to See, Ears to Hear - Part 2

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This morning I learned from many of our students and teachers that the return of school is upon us. I know some of you students hate to hear that. But as the school year approaches, I was thinking back to my own education, such as it was, in the early years in south Alabama. As each year got under way though (really starting with high school and into college and then graduate school) there were two events that were always expected with the beginning of school. One of them was the dreaded passing out of the assignment sheets (more work than it looks like one person can do in a lifetime, much less a semester), and just carrying those assignment sheets home after the first class of each new course with the sense of dread, I suppose, for wondering if there was any way I would be able to get it accomplished.

The other event that was always expected with the beginning of the school year, in each course was the anticipated pep talk, the annual win-one-for-the-Gipper speech by each of the teachers. You remember those? In my classes, particularly in college and graduate school, there was an often recurring theme in those sort of first-of-the-year speeches from my professors. It went something like this: you're only going to get out of this course, students, what you put into it. You ever heard that speech? You know what? They were right. The class was only as profitable as the investment of time and energy and study that I as a student put into it. What's remarkable is, it may be that that lesson, in the end, was actually more important than the content of most of the classes that I took. Because as it turns out, that is one of life's greatest lessons. You're only going to get out of school what you invest in it. You're only going to get out of a career what you invest in it. You're only going to get out of athletics what you invest in it. You're only going to get out of marriage or family what you invest in time and effort. And it even turns out that the same principle operates in the spiritual universe as well. That's the message of the passage we turn to in Mark 4 tonight.

We're studying two brief parables in the life of our Lord and His ministry. Jesus taught both of these from a boat, you remember, on the edge of the Sea of Galilee, as the crowd gathered around Him, up near Capernaum on the northwest corner of the Sea of Galilee. It was on that same long day that we've been in now for a number of months, as Mark records a number of key events from that day. But let me read for you the two parables that we're looking at together. Mark 4:21:

And [Jesus] was saying to them, "A lamp is not brought to be put under a basket, is it, or under a bed? Is it not brought to be put on the lampstand? For nothing is hidden, except to be revealed; nor has anything been secret, but that it would come to light. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear." And He was saying to them, "Take care what you listen to. By your standard of measure it will be measured to you; and more will be given you besides. For whoever has, to him more shall be given; and whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him."

A bit enigmatic, but in the end very understandable, I think, as we work our way through them. These two parables are intimately connected. Luke even links them together with the word therefore. Both of these parables are about the truth of God revealed in and through Jesus Christ.

Last time—let me just briefly remind you—we looked at the Parable of the Lamp, the first of the two. In verse 21, Mark takes us back to where Jesus was speaking in parables to the crowd (back in verse 9), and he picks up with another parable Jesus told them that came after the Parable of the Soils or the Sower. Verses 21-22, we just read them together. Basically, the point of the parable is God has set the light of the truth in Christ on a lampstand. Christ is the lamp, His teaching, the light. And God set all of that on a lampstand so that it was clearly visible. And even the truth that was veiled in Jesus' day, veiled by His use of parables, was only veiled for a short time. That's what verse 22 is saying: "Nothing is hidden, except to be revealed; nor has anything been secret, but that it would come to light." With the writing of the New Testament, everything was openly revealed or brought to full light, because the apostles held nothing back. They told us even those things that Jesus told them privately, not just what He said to the crowds on the beach. In Jesus and His ministry, God had set the lamp of the light of truth on a lampstand for all to see. And later through the apostles and their writings those things that'd been temporarily hidden and secret were revealed and were brought to light.

So then, the Parable of the Lamp—understand this—the Parable of the Lamp has to do with God's revelation of the truth, and Jesus concludes that with an invitation to repent of our rebellious refusal to to listen to God and to really hear the truth. "If anyone has ears hear [verse 23], let him hear." It is an invitation to turn from our rebellion and to really listen to Jesus Christ. So the light, then, has been put on a lampstand. The light of truth through the person and ministry of Jesus Christ, it has been put on display. You can't miss it. But what if you don't get it? Well, the problem isn't with the light, the problem is with your sight, as we learned last time. So the point of the first of these parables speaks to the issue of God's revelation. God has revealed His truth in Jesus Christ. It's clear, it's visible, it's light, and God has put it in an obvious place where you can't miss it. "If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear."

That brings us to the second parable that is intimately connected with this first, where we left off last time. The second is the Parable of the Measure. Look again at verses 24-25:

He was saying to them, "Take care what you listen to. By your standard of measure it will be measured to you; and more will be given [to] you besides. For whoever has, to him more shall be given; and whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him."

Now, what does our Lord mean by this sort of vague, clouded parable? What is the theme of this parable? Well, look at the context. Remember where we are in Mark chapter 4? We began the chapter with what parable? The Parable of the Soils, the parable of the seed sown on the soils. And what was the seed? The Word of God. And so the seed, the Word of God sown into different hearts bore different fruit. So basically, that parable was about the response to the Word of God. In verses 10-12 of this chapter, Jesus talks about (to His disciples privately) that there're some who really hear and understand what I'm teaching, and there're others who don't really get it, who don't really understand. And then in verses 13-20, He explains the Parable of the Sower. The seed of the Word falls into different kinds of hearts, and many of them don't bear any fruit at all in the life as a result of contact with the seed or God's revelation. Then when you get to verses 21-23 that we looked at last time, that too is about God's revelation. Verse 23: listen to God's revelation. Verse 24 comes to the same point.

So when you look at the context, clearly this second parable is talking about how people hear or respond to God's revelation. The first parable tells us God has made His revelation clear. The second parable says that we are to respond in a certain way. God has so positioned Christ that no one should miss the light. And in this second parable, Jesus is talking to the crowd gathered on the beach that day, and He's urging them to take care how they respond to that revelation. And He switches metaphors. In the first metaphor He's talking about eyes to see light. In the second metaphor He's talking about ears to hear a sound. In the Parable of the Lamp, you need eyes to see the light of truth. In the Parable of the Measure, you need ears to really hear the truth and respond. In the Parable of the Lamp, you have God's clear, open revelation of the light. The second parable, the Parable of the Measure is about our response to that revelation.

Jesus begins with a warning. Verse 24 begins, "He was saying to them, 'Take care what you listen to.'" In other words, beware or pay close attention to your response. Have you ever thought that that was serious to God? Your response to the truth of God is very serious to Jesus Christ. He warned the crowd gathered on the beach that day as He taught them, you better take care, beware, pay close attention to your response. You know, it's interesting. When you look through the Scripture, Scripture tells us to take care that you listen. Mark 4 makes that point a couple of times. The emphasis is on really hearing. You better really be careful to listen. But you also ought to be careful what you listen to. Mark 4:24 says, "Take care what you listen to." And you ought to be careful how you listen to the truth. Luke 8:18, the parallel passage, says, "So take care how you listen." Listen in such a way that it changes your thinking and your behavior, that it bears fruit in your life.

I had dinner recently with a pastor from the South. And he was describing the struggles of pastoring in a traditional, historic, denominational church where the faith has become kind of a social expedient. If you're a good member of the community, then you attend church. And you come and you mix and mingle, because your family did, and their family before that, and their family before that. And it's just what you do. Some of you've been in places like that. And in that conversation this pastor made a comparison that really got my attention. You know when you're putting your computer software on originally or if you're updating your computer software, various programs on your computer, there's always a screen that forces you to read and accept the terms of use? It looks something like this. And you can look down—you see that little button bar over there. It is a very long document. When you see that little-tiny button, you know there's like more to read there than you can read in a day. And so what do most of us do? We just click "I accept" and move on, usually without reading a single word. He said that's how a lot of professing Christians are in his area with the Bible. You ask them if they believe the Bible, and "Of course!" they say, "Yes!" They hit the "I accept" button. And then they come across some passage or somebody comes and shows them something from Scripture that contradicts their life, and they go, "Wait a minute, I didn't sign up for that! I don't agree what that! I'm not going to do that! That's not a reasonable expectation of me! That must've been in the fine print." Instead, when we come to the Scripture, we're not just supposed to check "I accept" generally, and then when it comes to the specifics we reject them. We're supposed to accept it fully in its whole and in its parts.

So Jesus warns us to be very careful about how we listen. We ought to listen in order to understand and to do. There're so many texts that talk about about this. Listen to the Scripture, read the Scripture, take the Scripture in—in order to do it. You shouldn't be here tonight just to listen to me. I wouldn't be here to listen to me. You ought to be here to listen to the Word of God in order that you can understand it better, so that you will do it. Listen to what God charges Joshua in Joshua 1:8. He says, "This book of the law": all the Scripture Joshua had at the time, the first five books of the Bible penned by Moses shortly before that. He says, "This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night." Why? By the way, let me go back. You know what "depart from your mouth" means? It means "to read." In the ancient world they read out loud for the most part. And so he says (basically) you are to read constantly. It's not to depart from your mouth. And you're to "meditate on it day and night." Why? "So that [for this purpose] you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have [good] success."

Listen, memorizing the Scripture isn't going to give you good success. That's a good first step, but you have to meditate on it in order to do it. Psalm 1:2 speaks of the righteous man. "His delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night." For what purpose? Same purpose as in Joshua: in order to do it. And then that third verse in Psalm 1 describes the righteous man like a prosperous, growing, healthy tree transplanted by the irrigation canals and always has a constant source of water and lives and thrives. Psalm 119:11: "Your word I have treasured in my heart, that I may not sin against You." I've treasured it in my heart, so that I will do it, so that I'll not sin against You. Psalm 119:99: "I have more insight than all my teachers, for Your testimonies are my meditation." I'm thinking about Your Word in order to learn it, in order to do it. Luke 8:21, listen to who Jesus praised. We just studied this passage in Mark's gospel. "[Jesus] answered and said to them, 'My mother and My brothers are these who hear the word of God and [what?] do it.'" You want to be part of Jesus' family? You're somebody who hears His Word and does it. Luke 11:28, remember they were saying, oh how blessed must be the person that gave birth to You. And Jesus said let Me tell you who's blessed: "Blessed are those who heard the word of God and observe it." Who do it. James 1:25, that we studied now several years ago: "One who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does." You understand the Bible is not a book that you ought to just enjoy? Remember, in Ezekiel's day they liked to hear Ezekiel talk. It was like a good song. "Ah, it was a wonderful message, Pastor. It was great, great." No. It's in order to do it.

Jesus says be careful that you listen; be careful what you listen to, the Word of God; and be careful how you listen, that you listen in order to do it. Now that brings us to the parable itself. Verse 24 continues with this very interesting statement: "By your standard of measure it will be measured to you." This was probably a common saying in the time of Christ. Similar wording can be found outside the Bible. For example, it can be found in ancient grain contracts around that time, commercial grain contracts. The point in the contracts of this wording was that the two parties were agreeing to use the same unit of measure in their contract.

Jesus uses this expression several times to make several different points. For example, in Matthew 7:2 you remember, in the Sermon on the Mount, He says, "For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you." In this context, obviously, Jesus is saying that you will be judged by the same standard you use. The point is don't be hypocritical in passing self-righteous judgment on others. Luke 6:38, He uses it again. He says, "Give, and it will be given to you. They will pour into your lap a good measure—pressed down, shaken together, and running over. For by your standard of measure it will be measured to you in return." Again, the context makes it clear that here Jesus is employing this same expression to refer to giving, to being generous. Generosity will be met with generosity. It's not a promise you're going to get rich. It's just a promise that God is generous to those who are generous. And here in Mark chapter 4 it's used a third time, and here it has to do with one's response to truth.

Jesus has made the point again and again. It's not simply the fact that you hear the truth, it's how you hear. "By your standard of measure it will be measured to you" is a universal law. You understand that? It's the principle of reciprocity. It's true intellectually, and it's equally or more true morally and spiritually. D. Edmond Hiebert, the commentator on the Gospel of Mark, writes, "The measure of their diligent attention to the teaching will be the measure of the profit they derive from it." Their attention equals their benefit or their profit. Another commentator, France, writes, "The care expended in understanding and responding to Jesus' parables will be proportionately rewarded." In other words, how diligent are you as a student? You will only get out of this what you invest in it.

But our increasing ability to understand the truth is not merited. It's not earned. It's not deserved. And to make that clear, Jesus adds this little line at the end of verse 24: "And more will be given you besides." In other words, this is a gracious promise from God. The spiritual benefit we receive from our study, from our reading, from our listening carefully to the words of Christ, will be even greater than the effort we expend. It will be grace. The one who listens carefully will get even more spiritual benefit than he invests. Haven't you found that to be true? I certainly have.

That brings us then to Jesus' application. If the point of the parable is you only get out of this what you put into it, let's listen to how Jesus applies [it]. Verse 25, "For whoever has, to him more shall be given; and whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him." This is similar to a very basic observation in capitalism. The rich get richer and—what? The poor get poorer. But Jesus isn't talking here about personal wealth.

This is a familiar expression to Jesus, and one that He uses on several occasions, again, with different meanings. In the same context He uses it, as in Mark 4, in Matthew 13 and Luke 8. So there He means the same thing. He also uses it in the Parable of the Talents. You remember that? He says, "Take away the talent from him, [Matthew 25:28] and give it to the one who has ten talents." Remember the guy who buried it? Take it away from him. Give it to the one who has ten. "For to everyone who has, more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but from the one who does not have, even what he [has] shall be taken away." He uses it the same way in the Parable of the Minas (another unit of money) in Luke 19. Same basic idea. And then, of course, He uses it here in Mark chapter 4.

In all these cases—listen carefully—in all these cases the point is basically the same: God responds to faithfulness. Again, D. Edmond Hiebert writes, "Truth received and carefully assimilated enlarges one's capacity to receive more truth." Whoever has, to him more will be given. If you study the truth, you listen carefully, you seek to understand the truth, you grow in your understanding—and it grows and grows. As you invest, you grow and you get more. That's the point. God responds to that faithful diligence of study with greater understanding, and more even than you put into it, because God is gracious.

But the opposite is true as well. Look at the second half of verse 25: "Whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him." If you fail to use your capacity (however limited it may be) to understand the truth, if you aren't diligent with what you already have, it undermines your future capacity to understand even more.

Isn't this true with the other things we learn? Think about it for a moment. Somebody asked me this morning if I played an instrument, as I was walking past the music table down at the ministry fair. My standard response is yeah, I do, I play the radio—if it picks up static. Apart from that I'm lost. The truth is I once played an instrument like many of you. In fact, just out of curiosity, how many of you have played an instrument at some point in you life? Let me see your hands. That's what I thought. How many of you are still playing fairly well an instrument? Let me see your hands. Yeah. You get the point. The point is we used to play some instrument, but we never really mastered it. In my case, it was the trombone. Mostly I just pity my parents having to listen to my practice. And then years went by in which we never used that skill, and now we have lost whatever little skill we may have had.

That's how it works with the truth. When you have no regard for it, you loose any comprehension you may once have had, however little it was. In Luke 8:18, Luke puts it like this: "So take care how you listen; for whoever has, to him more shall be given; and whoever does not have, even what he thinks he has shall be taken away from him." It's not that he really had a deep understanding of the truth, it's that he thought he had more than he did. But when he doesn't exercise that, when he doesn't seek to know and study and learn and dive into the text of Scripture, he looses even the capacity for what he has.

Jesus' point in this Parable of the Measure is that spiritual understanding—listen carefully—spiritual understanding is like a muscle: used and exercised it grows stronger; neglected, it gets weaker and weaker until there is no understanding at all. Every time someone hears the Word of God, he has a responsibility to listen carefully and to learn and to seek to understand. And when he doesn't exercise that spiritual pursuit, when he doesn't take care to listen (what he listens to and how he listens), then his capacity to understand grows yet weaker and weaker and weaker. It's primarily here talking to unbelievers. Jesus was talking to those lost people standing on the shore there as they were listening to His parables, but, of course, there's an application for us as believers as well.

In fact, let's go to the implications, then, of what Jesus is saying. The Parable of the Measure essentially comes down to this: you only get out of it what you invest in it, what you put into it; and if you don't put into it, you will loose what you've already invested. So what are the implications? First of all, for believers. For us this is a reminder that our ability to hear Jesus and respond is only because of God's grace. Hasn't that been the point of the whole passage, of this whole section of parables, the soils? God prepared the soil of our heart to receive the Word of God. God's the One who enabled us to hear and understand. God is the One who made the light clear, and He's the One who gave us the capacity to really understand it. This is the theme throughout Scripture. I love the way it's put in John 6. John 6:44:

"No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day. [How does the Father draw him? What's the capacity He uses?] It is written in the prophets, 'AND THEY SHALL ALL BE TAUGHT OF GOD.' Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father, comes to Me."

The Father draws us through the Word of God. When you came to Christ—why? It was because the Father was, in the Gospel preached, working through the Spirit to draw you to Himself. The only reason you heard, really heard and understood, really understood, was because of the work of God's grace. James 1:18 puts it a little differently: "In the exercise of [God's] will He brought us forth [He gave birth to us] by the word of truth." It was His will giving birth to us, and He did it by the word of truth, by opening our minds to really hear and to really understand the truth.

Folks, this is a reminder of what we owe God. Do you understand that if God hadn't intervened in your life, you would still be living in darkness? You wouldn't have a clue about spiritual things. It's only because God in grace working through the Word of God drew you to Himself and opened your mind to understand. I love that description in 2 Corinthians 4 where, you know, Paul says Satan has blinded the minds of those who don't believe so that they won't see the light of the Gospel of Christ. And then he goes on to say, but God has declared let there be light. That's exactly what God did. That's why you see today, that's why you really hear, because God said let the light shine. So this parable reminds us, then, that the fact that we hear and understand God's Word is a gift of God's grace. And in both of these verses, God generously gives more understanding to the one who seeks Him in His Word—[more] than they sought. The fact that we respond to God's revelation at all is just grace.

There's a second implication for us as believers out of this passage, and it is a call to careful, prolonged Bible study. Jesus says you're only going to get out what you invest. The measure with which you measure, it will be measured to you. That's why people like the Bereans are praised. You remember Acts 17:11? "Now these were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so." We are to invest in the Scriptures, in understanding them, our time, our energy, our effort. How much of your time and energy and effort is spent seeking to understand the Word of God? A. W. Pink was right: "No verse of Scripture yields its meaning to the lazy man." Your capacity to understand the Scripture will only grow as you work hard to understand it. With the measure you measure, it will be measured to you. If you don't, your capacity will dwindle.

There's a third implication. It's an implication for the church as a whole. This is really a call for the church of Jesus Christ to be engaged in an expository ministry. You know, it's interesting. Several years ago, Lifeway (connected to the Southern Baptists) commissioned a study of worship in churches. And although much about worship, obviously, has changed over the last decade, preaching has changed very little. Pastors in the study (that this organization did in response to Lifeway's request and funding) pastors in the study preached for—Are you ready for this?—anywhere from eight minutes each week to almost two hours. See, it's not as bad as you thought. Pentecostals tended to have the longest sermons. Of the major denominational groups, Lutherans and Methodists had the shortest sermons. Lutheran sermons averaged 20 minutes; Methodists, just under 22 minutes. But you know what's more important than even the length of time is what's being said in that 20 or 22 minutes. Unfortunately, the Word of God is abused or neglected entirely.

I've listened to several messages by large churches in our area where in a 20-25 minute little devotional talk there were three verses, only read, not even commented on, and what he had to say had nothing to do with those texts. There's another large church in our area I've—you don't know that I do this, but I do listen to see what's going on and watch various videos. And there's another church in our area who had a series of messages, the pastor did, called "iGod" (essentially, a play off the word iPod) in which he played a secular song at the beginning of his message, totally secular, and then spent his entire message time of about 20-25 minutes trying to find God in that secular song. Very little reference to the Scripture, if any. Listen, when the church invests only little in the content of Scripture, it will only grow little. In fact, it will begin to loose what little it has, if it has any at all.

There's an interesting book called Evangelical Eloquence, written during the time of the Civil War by an American theologian, a Presbyterian by the name of R. L. Dabney. R. L. Dabney writes in Evangelical Eloquence that "there is a predictable pattern in church decline." He says, "The first generation, you have a church preaching the biblical truth in [what he called] biblical dress." By that he meant biblical language, biblical truth in biblical language. He said, "The second generation of decline is biblical truth in secular dress. Now the basic truths of Scripture are taught, but not in the language of Scripture. There is a studied attempt to communicate the truth without connecting it to the Scripture itself." In our culture many churches are living right there. R. L. Dabney said, "The third step of decline is in that third generation. There's no biblical truth at all, because they've lost the foundation, they've lost the mooring." If you remove the serious study of the Word of God, you will only see people's capacity for the Word of God diminish.

You know, sometimes as people age they begin to loose the ability and enjoyment of eating regular food. I saw this even with my own mom before her death. And sadly, over time, their ability continues to diminish until they're only able to digest, basically, baby food. I think there're a lot of Christians who have suffered the same fate with the serious study of the Word of God. They have become so used to baby food that they couldn't handle anything else. Many argue that if you just teach the Bible, you'll drive people away. You know, it's interesting, because in a number of cases God promises His prophets that that is exactly what will happen. And then He tells them to do it anyway. In fact, Ezekiel 2:5, He says, "As for [the people], whether they listen or not—for they are a rebellious house—they will know that a prophet has been among them." The bottom line is, as one commentator says, "The faithful witness of the messenger has more importance than a successful response from the hearers." Just be faithful to the truth. Isn't that what Paul said to Timothy in 2 Timothy 4 right before his death? Timothy, let me charge you to do this: just preach the Word. It's where the church needs to be.

There's another implication. It's for the unbeliever. Jesus' words are a warning to listen up. In the context in which Jesus spoke this parable, it was intended primarily for unbelievers. Remember, He's talking to a bunch of unbelievers there on the shore. His followers were mixed in with them, but there was a large crowd of people who were not. They were the outsiders, as He called them earlier in this chapter. Earlier in this same chapter, Jesus had told the disciples that the ability to hear was directly related to divine sovereignty. Remember? And that's true. But here, in the parable we just looked at, Jesus tells the unbelievers standing before Him that they have a personal responsibility to search out His meaning. You're only going to get out of this what you invest in it. You will have measured to you by the measure in which you listen. Your spiritual understanding will only be as great as the effort you expend. He'd commanded them to work hard at understanding. And if they refused, if they refused to think, if they refused to hear, if they refused to obey, then understand that as a judgment God may take away their capacity to understand at all.

Listen, if you're here tonight and you're not in Christ—and I have to assume that's true—understand this. Jesus Himself said (and He would say this to you if He were here tonight) that you have the obligation before God to try to understand the Word of God, to seek out the truth of Scripture, to make your brain sweat, to cry out to God for understanding. And if you don't do that, then you bear the full responsibility. It's not God's fault. You remember in Luke 10:10? Jesus told His disciples when He sent them out,

"Whatever city you enter and they do not receive you, go out into its streets and say [this], 'Even the dust of your city which clings to our feet we wipe off in protest against you; yet be sure of this, that the kingdom of God has come near.'"

In other words, may your judgment be on your own heads, because you didn't listen. Acts 13:46, "Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly and said [to the Jews that they had ministered to in the synagogue], 'It was necessary that the word of God be spoken to you first; since you repudiate it and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we are turning to the Gentiles.'" In other words, the fault is yours. Paul called his entire ministry a ministry in which he was an aroma of death to some and life to others through the same truth because of their response. Jesus' words are a warning to all unbelievers. When you stand before Jesus Christ (and that's what the Scripture promises will happen) don't even think about offering the justification, "Well, you know, I just didn't understand the Bible." Jesus says you better invest yourself in understanding it, and if you don't, even what little understanding you have will be taken away. And it will be a judgment on you that you will deserve.

But while Jesus' words are a warning, they're also an invitation. Even as He warns, He invites. Did you notice that? Look at Mark 4 again. Verse 24 says, "And more will be given [to] you besides. For whoever has, to him more shall be given." This is an invitation from Jesus. If you will really seek God in His Word, if you will really seek to listen with an open and willing heart, then with the measure you used to seek to study and understand the Scripture, God will measure out to you more understanding. And He will give you that understanding, not merely by your standard of measurement, but way beyond, because He's gracious.

Let me take you to one text as we finish our study that, I think, pulls all this together. Look at Isaiah 55. This is really what Jesus was saying that day to the crowd gathered on the beach. Isaiah 55:3, "Incline your ear and come to Me. Listen, that you may live." He's already invited them in the first two verses to have salvation, in figurative language. But notice now what He says in verse 6: "Seek the Lord while He may be found." Diligently seek God. This is an invitation to unbelievers. "Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near." But don't stop there. "Let the wicked forsake his way." That is, his predictable patterns of behavior. This is repentance. Call out to God. Seek God in His Word. Seek Him in prayer. Seek to pursue Him, and be willing to turn from your sinful patterns of behavior. That's your "way." "And the unrighteous man [turn from his or forsake] his thoughts." Be willing to turn from the sinful patterns of thinking. We're talking about repentance.

And let him return to the Lord,

And He will have compassion on him,

And to our God,

For He will abundantly pardon.

"For My thoughts are not your thoughts,

Nor are your ways My ways" declares the Lord.

"For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

So are My ways higher than your ways

And My thoughts than your thoughts."

Listen, this may not make sense to you, but God's ways are much better and greater than yours. And then He says this:

"As the rain and the snow come down from heaven,

And do not return there without watering the earth

And making it bear and sprout,

And furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater;

So will My word be which goes forth from My mouth;

It will not return to Me empty,

Without accomplishing what I desire,

And without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it."

Here's the point. You come to the Word of God and you seek God in it, you cry out to God, you be willing to repent and turn from your sin, and God will use His Word to bring life. He will bring pardon. His Word will accomplish everything in you that He intends to accomplish. But you have to have ears to hear. By the measure you measure it will be measured to you. Let's pray together.

Father, thank You for our study this evening. Thank You for the beauty of Jesus Christ. Thank You for the profundity of His thoughts and His mind. Thank You for the power of His teaching. Father, I pray that You would bring the full weight of who He was and what He taught to bear on our hearts. May we worship Him in all of His beauty and all of His greatness. Father, I pray for those of us here tonight who are believers. Remind us, even in this parable, that we only heard and we only understand because You're gracious. Father, remind us to be diligent students who will only get out of Your Word what we invest in it, even as believers. And Father, I pray for the person here tonight who knows in his heart of hearts, her heart of hearts, because Your Spirit has brought the awareness and conviction, that they don't belong to You. I pray that they would be willing to seek You with all their heart, because You promised they would find you and that You would pardon and forgive and do Your work in their hearts. Lord, may they seek You even tonight, even this week, and in the weeks and months to come. We pray it in Jesus' name and for His glory, amen.