The Sower	The Wheat & Tares	The Mustard Seed	The Leaven	The Treasure	The Pearl	The Full Net

The Teaching on the Seven Parables are excerpts from Brother Emerson A. Wilson teaching of the Seven Parable

The Seven Parables

INTRODUCTION

We read in Matthew 13: "The same day went Jesus out of the house, and sat by the sea side. And great multitudes were gathered together unto him, so that he went into a ship, and sat; and the whole multitude stood on the shore. And He spake many things unto them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow; And when he had sowed, some seeds fell by the way side, and the fowls came and devoured them up: Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth: And when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away. And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up, and choked them: But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear."

"And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables? He answered and said unto them, Because It is given unto you 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 more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath. Therefore speak I to them In parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see,, and shall not perceive: For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear."

The Revelation says: He (or she) that has part in the first resurrection is blessed and holy. The first resurrection is the spiritual resurrection. When we are resurrected from our dead condition of trespasses and sin we are blessed as individuals. Blessed eyes, blessed ears, blessed feet, and blessed hands. "Blessed are your eyes for they see and your ears for they hear, for verily I say unto you that many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which you see, and have not seen them, and to hear those things you hear and have not heard them."

Now when we deal with the seven parables I am sure that you are all aware of the fact that seven In the Word of God Is an Important number. There are seven parables and seven letters, and we find seven churches and seven angels, and seven lamps and seven seals, and seven trumpets and seven thunders and seven heads and seven horns. Go back to the Old Testament and we read about the seven cattle and seven ears. It is all very important. The 11th verse tells us why Christ dealt with parables.

Let us take our time with this. I have a great burden to keep the simplicity of the Gospel.

God used these parables to teach the kingdom. Could we find anything better? Let us look at the 11th verse. Jesus said, "It is given unto you (His disciples) to know the mysteries of the kingdom of Heaven, but to them It Is not given." Now, let us underline that word, GIVEN, and get it fixed in our minds that it is a gift--it is not earned. We are living in a day when a man is not qualified if he has not earned certain things, but this, is something that Is given. "It is given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of Heaven. But to them it is not." That is, to those that have not opened heart and mind to receive the blessed truth.

There are two words here that we want to study in the beginning. He said to know the "mysteries of the kingdom" of heaven (and He used the plural), and I would like to say that for every mystery there is about the kingdom, someone has given us a false teaching about it. But it is given to us to know the mysteries and when something has been given to us through a medium, we can understand the mysteries of the kingdom of God and see It alike. Let us underline that word, mystery. Webster says: That which is beyond human comprehension. We are going to 'leave off' that, which can be gained by Intellectual power, and try to get hold of something Jesus tried to give Nicodemus If we ever learn of the kingdom. He said, "You must be born again to see the kingdom. That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the spirit is spirit." We are surely agreed that there are many mysteries, and we will mention just a few.

There are the mystery of Christ, the mystery of the faith, the mystery of God, the mystery of the seven stars, the mystery of iniquity, and the mystery of babylon. We want to emphasize again to you as we study this lesson, even as Jesus did, the necessity of the aid of the Holy Spirit of God, to understand spiritual things. Paul said in I Cor. 2:9, "…Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him." And most people quit there, and say, "We Just can't know." However, let us read the 10th verse. "But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God." Then He went on to say in the 14th verse, "But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."

IT IS GIVEN UNTO YOU TO KNOW

When you see many people running around, even when they call themselves members of the church of God, who say, "That's just foolishness" - If it is the Word of God, you 'mark' that fellow. He's a 'natural man.' We read in the 12th verse of the 13th chapter of Matthew: "For whosoever hath to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance, but whosoever hath not, from him it shall be taken away, even that he hath." Also, dealing with the same parable In Luke, the 8th chapter and the 18th verse, it reads: "that which he seemeth to have". This is a give and take proposition. Whosoever hath, to him there shall be more given.

Now, as we deal with these parables, If you have truth and have truly been born of the Spirit of God, more will be added to you, but if you have false conceptions of God's Word, that which you have will be taken away. If you ever get anything from God, you must trade something in. Too many people want to be given things without giving anything themselves. But we must turn something in to God. You are not going to hold on to your old false conceptions of God's eternal Word, and expect to get right. When you are ready to trade the other in and to take it God's way, then He will deal with you.

We realize that a mystery Is beyond human comprehension. The next thing to consider is the parable. I want to refresh your memory for our common benefit. Jesus said: "I spake unto them in parables". But for what reason? That to some the lesson might be revealed and at the same time hidden to others. He said: "I spoke in parables that I might get the message to some people and it might remain hid to others." In the 10th chapter Jesus told the people that some of them were blessed for kings and prophets and righteous men in their day desired to hear the things they were hearing.

Parables are used all through the Word of God. A parable is like a pillar of cloud and fire. The same pillar of fire brought darkness on the Egyptians and confounded them on their side of it, and on the other side it brought light to Israel and lit their pathway. God deals in parables and symbols. Why? I should like to express it this way: When in the service, I operated a radio for the Colonel of the regiment. We had what we called an MG-09 converter and when we would send messages in enemy territory, I would just take the message from the colonel, set up a couple of letters on that converter and run the message through. When it came out it was just a jumbled mess of letters of the alphabet. I would get the 'key' and send It over the air. The first two letters that I sent were the 'keys' that I used to my machine. The operator on the other end had a machine just like mine. He would get those two keys. He would set it up on his machine and send the message back plain. But the enemy couldn't make anything out of it. That is why God deals in parables and symbols--He has the enemy spotted. We know the devil is working today. Paul said that we are not ignorant of his devices. The truth is hidden, but God reveals it to us through His Holy Spirit. The parable is like the pillar of cloud and fire. While it confounds the enemy, it lights and comforts the children of God. <P

Christ said: "It is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom. Then He proceeds to give the seven parables. He shows us the morning time which we know was the sowing age.

And He presents here a story of different kinds of ground that covers all mankind. Every one of us is represented by one kind of ground or the other: That of wayside ground, stony ground, thorny ground, or good ground. That was Christ's way of beginning the teachings of the kingdom of God.

Christ said: "A sower went forth to sow. Now, when He began to teach about the kingdom, the Word of God tells us in the 13th chapter and the 37th verse that Christ Is the sower. The 8th chapter of Luke and the 11th verse says: "The seed is the Word of God." Also Matthew, the 13th and l9th verse says:"the seed is the Word of the kingdom." So, the Word of God and the Word of the kingdom is the same thing.

If we preach the Word of God, we will be building the Kingdom of God. To build up anything else besides the Word In the hearts of men and women, we will have to teach them something else besides. In Matthew, we read that when he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside, and the fowls came and devoured them up. This is the wayside seed or the first kind of ground that Jesus spoke of. But we must remember that four types of people as well as four types of ground are mentioned. There is no 'middle place'--we are either wayside soil, stony, thorny, or good soil. We shall locate them all in time.

I am glad that the disciples asked about them. Some people never learn because they are not humble enough to ask. The best way to find out about anything, in which you are interested, is to Inquire. Jesus said, "Ask and ye shall receive,"

Now, when He talked about these parables, they did not understand, and He gave them understanding. And Matthew wrote it down so you and I could get It. He said that when any one heareth the Word of the kingdom and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he that receiveth seed by the wayside.