A Story for the Hard of Listening, Part 2

In the aftermath of a very busy day of ministry, Jesus sat down and began to tell a story. His intention was to teach a life lesson using a simple metaphor that would ignite the imagination of those who stood by. The cultural implications of this parable told by Jesus and its application for you and me today. Teaching from Matthew chapter 13, Chuck titled today's message, A Story for the Heart of Listening. Just as there were those in years past who gave their lives that we might know freedom, so there was one who lived and died for every one of us, promising us not only the hope of forgiveness and eternal life, but true freedom, freedom from others' expectations, freedom from the grinding, binding demands of the Mosaic law, freedom from one's own habits and the domination of sin as it runs through our lives, all of our lives. If you don't know that freedom, if you don't know that one who died, what a perfect, perfect moment for you to pause and receive him.

He waits. And like the other comment I made, only you know, only you know if you have trusted in Jesus for eternal life. If you have not, do that now.

Do that now. Please bow with me as we pray briefly. In a world that is on fire and filled with panic, unrest, fear and depression, our Father, we who know your Son, thank you for the peace that passes all understanding. Thank you for his life and his sacrifice on our behalf. Thank you that nothing was left for us to pay for, but all was paid for at the cross. For many of us first saw the light and the burden of our heart rolled away, but some still have not. And we pray that on this weekend, given for the purpose of reflecting on freedom and liberty and the sacrifice it took to provide it, that those without Christ will come to him. And we pray that you will, upon their coming, give them healing and hope and the reassurance that nothing else can provide, that they might know what we who know Christ know, what it means to be still in our souls and realize that God is God. Minister, we pray through your word today in a very special way, give us ears not only to hear, but combined with open hearts, may we listen and may it make a difference in the way we live.

Our Father, we are grateful for our occupations and the way we make our living. But we realize that you own it all. You even give us breath in our lungs and give us a pulse beat in our hearts.

Because you own it all, we pause to realize that whatever we give is already yours. And I pray, Lord, that that might prompt us to be people with not only open hearts, but open hands. Find favor, we pray, in the gifts that are released today and the motive behind the giving. And use these gifts in significant ways here and beyond the familiar world in which we live. These things we ask in the name of Christ, and because of Him, we give to Him and His work through Jesus, we pray.

Everyone said, Amen. You're listening to Insight for Living. To study the book of Matthew with Chuck Swindoll, be sure to download his Searching the Scriptures Studies by going to insightworld.org slash studies.

And now the message from Chuck titled, A Story for the Heart of Listening. I think Jesus had one of those nonstop kind of days when I look back through chapter 12. Beginning at verse 2 of chapter 12, they are eating grain and he's confronted by the Pharisees. The same group of critics called a secret meeting in verse 14 of chapter 12, and the meeting was about finding a way to kill him. Knowing of that meeting, Jesus escaped and kept right on healing as the crowds followed.

And is there anything more draining than the constancy of crowds? That's in verse 15 of chapter 12. And wouldn't you know it, by the time you get to verse 46 to 50, his own family shows up from Nazareth and they want to remove him and rescue him from himself because some of them believe he's lost it. When you face a day like that, look at verse 1 of chapter 13, it makes sense that Jesus would leave the house and sit beside the lake.

Sounds like a great place for a little R&R. Well, that doesn't last long because as soon as he's there, the crowd locates him, verse 2, and they gather around and he has to get into a boat, which becomes a perfect theater setting, there's no public address system, so his voice would carry easily over the shoreline, and as they are sitting, as they are standing, he is sitting, and he decides, verse 2, that he would teach them, and he told them many stories in the form of a parable. Always remember when you're reading your Bible to pay attention to unusual words. One of them emerges in verse 3. He told them many stories in the form of parables. Interesting word, actually it's a combination of two Greek words, para, which means beside. You place something para, something, you do it beside it, and ballo, which is the verb for to throw or to cast, sometimes to place, placing something alongside something else for the purpose of comparison, to teach a particular truth. Furthermore, the truth they teach is immediate. Either you immediately get it or you do not.

They're designed to be like that. In other words, Jesus used these parables, these comparisons, first of all to reveal truth to those who desired to get it, and then to conceal truth from those who rejected it and denied it. It sort of separated the listeners from those who had no interest. What is the one truth that Jesus wanted to convey? So he begins with the familiar. Parables start like that. Familiar to people in the first century, though not familiar to 21st century people, some of whom have never been on a farm, most of whom have never sown seed in a field.

Because we're not of an agricultural type setting in our lives, a little explanation is helpful. A farmer would have the field plowed or he would plow it and then would attach a bag of seed to the waste or would hang a shoulder bag, a strap of a shoulder bag, and he would reach inside and as he walked along, he would randomly broadcast the seed, tossing it here and there, and the seed would fall randomly on the soil. That's the picture. It could have been that there was a farmer up on a hillside and Jesus is just like that farmer. You've all seen it.

You're all familiar. There was this farmer that sowed seed. He was planting or scattering seed. Now I want you to do something you don't normally do unless you're among those that like to take notes. I'd like you to take out a pen or a pencil because I want you to mark four things that I want to point out. They're important for us to understand this parable.

I won't analyze it too much, but I do want you to see the various parts. If you pen handy, I want you, verse four, to mark the footpath or beside the road. It reads, as he scattered a seed across the field, some fell on a footpath. Mark that. That's the first kind of soil that he uses to illustrate his point. What is a footpath?

Between rows, there would often be provided a place for people to walk so they didn't crush the plants as they walked across the field. That reminds me of something that happened years ago. I just thought of it. We were driving from San Francisco to Houston. I'd just gotten my orders cut and I was going to have to go overseas, so we had a month off before I left. Cynthia and I got the brilliant idea to drive without stopping from San Francisco to Houston. You do dumb things when you're early married, and this was one of our dumber things. One of us said we would fix it up where one would sleep in the backseat and the other would drive, hopefully would drive. One would sleep and the other would drive. So we swapped off.

We would wake the other one up and say, it's your turn, and we'd get up. One time, we are outside Pecos, Texas. Ever been to Pecos?

Don't go. But anyway, it's flat land and it's way out there. Cynthia woke up as the car was doing this. She's in the back asleep and I'm at the wheel and she said, what in the world is going on? It's a rough road.

You know what? I'd slept for about seven miles from outside Pecos through three traffic lights into a cotton field. We were in the field going through this and she said, I'm never going to trust you again.

She said other things I'm not going to get into, but I remember thinking it probably wasn't a good idea to come all the way back without sleep. Anyway, we were not on a footpath. We were in the field where we should not have been, and thankfully the farmer did not see us going, knocking all the crops down. The pathway keeps you from doing that kind of thing, gives you a place to walk. But imagine everybody walking a pathway, it gets as hard as a pavement. And if you drop seed on a pavement like on this desk here, it would just lie there and then blow away, which is his point. We'll get to it in a moment on a footpath.

Now you've got your pen ready. Look at verse five. Other seed fell on your Bible may read rocky places or rocky soil. Mine reads on shallow soil. The reason is it's more shallow than rocky. When we think of rocky soil, we think of little stones and rocks mingled in the soil, but it's not that.

This is a small shelf, almost like a skin of dirt, that lays on top of limestone, big slabs of limestone, found all over Israel. And it would be shallow soil, and obviously if seed lands there, it begins to germinate, but there's no place for the root to grow and the sun comes and pounds on it and the weather beats on it and it finally withers and it doesn't grow. It dies, says at the end of verse six.

Now get ready, here's the third. Other seed fell among thorns. Now it sounds like they were throwing seed on thorns. Actually, in the plowing, it had not gotten all of the roots of thorns out of there. And here are these fibrous roots that are really a thorn and thistles that as soon as the ground begins to be watered and the sun shines, the thorns grow up along with the grain and the thorns overgrow the grain and choke out the grain so that it cannot produce. And the new sprouts are hindered from producing and we read they being these tender plants that they were are choked out and of no use. Then the fourth is market fertile soil or your Bible may read good soil. Nice, clean, soft, well-cultivated or well-plowed soil that the roots can go into and then the plant grows and is healthy and becomes productive. Verse 10, naturally his disciples are hearing this and they don't know where he's going with it.

They knew all about soils. But they knew it wasn't an agricultural class. There's something more to this. They just couldn't figure it out so they said, why do you use parables when you talk to the people? His answer is significant. Now you're permitted to understand the secrets of the kingdom of heaven and others are not. To those who listen to my teaching, that's a key word. To those who listen to my teaching, more understanding will be given. They'll have an abundance of knowledge but, but for those who are not listening, I've circled not in my Bible. For those who are not listening, even what little understanding they have will be taken from them. And that's why I use parables. Interesting, isn't it?

All four soils receive the seed. Just as we'll see in a moment, all who have the seed planted in their lives hear but they don't all listen. They're not hard of hearing, they're hard of listening.

That's what he has in mind. In fact, he says in verse 13, they look but they don't really see. And they hear but they don't really listen or understand. Then he quotes from Isaiah in verse 15 is significant because that's where the problem lies. Not in the auditory nerve, not in the optical nerve, but down deep in the hearts of these people.

Hardened and their ears cannot hear and their eyes cannot see. You know what? Let me just interrupt here and make a statement so that we'll see the relevance of all of this. That explains why some of you, as you sit and endure a message, keep checking your watch, keep wondering how much longer, and the answer is longer than you wish, and you're bored.

It's not of interest to you. You want to yawn. You really want to get up and scoot, get out. But others of you would say, I wish you'd gone on 30, 45 more minutes. I wish we'd had time to really dig even deeper than that because I love this.

This explains why you know people with whom you're able to share God's truth and they say to you in so many words, just tell me more. I just can't get enough of this. I will tell you, I'll confess to you, when I got to seminary, when I was in that category, I couldn't get enough. I clamored for a front row seat. I didn't want to be distracted by anything else. I wanted to learn from everyone that was teaching the truth. I knew this was my one and only moment to glean as much as I could.

I wasn't that bright. There were others far more bright than I, but I had a hunger. I knew that my heart was like a sponge. And I listened, I listened, I interacted. I would often stay until the prof would check his watch to see how much longer this guy is going to ask questions.

I wanted more, I wanted more. I'm not bragging, I'm just saying my heart was open. But not everyone in the class had open hearts. Some were bored. Some, in fact, dropped out of school after one year or two.

Or they went through, but it didn't mean that much. This is the picture here, like some of you. You will leave, and by the time you finish lunch, if your life depended on it, you could not repeat what you heard because you didn't listen.

Oh, you heard it, but you have a heart problem. And as he puts it, the hearts of these people are hardened. We're just getting started with this fascinating word picture presented by Jesus. Chuck Swindoll titled today's message, A Story for the Heart of Listening.

And please stay with us because he's in the studio to share a closing comment. And to learn more about this ministry, please visit us online at insightworld.org. At Insight for Living, one of our major goals is to help you understand the Bible in new and fresh ways so you can integrate the truth of God's Word into your life. It's not enough to simply hear Bible teaching.

It needs to sink into the fertile soil of a heart that's truly listening. And if this approach has motivated you to spend more time in personal Bible study, I'll remind you that Insight for Living offers the Swindoll Study Bible. It's intentionally designed to help you grasp the meaning of God's Word and to see how it applies to every aspect of your life. With the Swindoll Study Bible open in your lap, you'll have access to decades of Chuck's personal study and insight laid side by side with the Scriptures. And it's presented, of course, in the approachable style you've come to expect from Chuck. To purchase a copy of the Swindoll Study Bible, go to insight.org slash offer.

Or call us if you're listening in the United States, dial 1-800-772-8888. Chuck, you're devoting the entire year of 2021 to this first book in the New Testament, and already it's been eye-opening. Our current study through the Gospel of Matthew has been absolutely delightful. How refreshing to read this eyewitness account from a man who actually walked alongside Jesus.

In one of our recent studies, we saw Jesus teaching in the public square. To a weary audience, he offered these comforting words when he said, Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light. Oh, we never tire of hearing this calming invitation from Jesus, do we? His soothing words spill over us like a refreshing waterfall of hope, washing away our fatigue and replacing it with confidence.

After all, the last year has been riddled with unwanted surprises, hasn't it? During this season of hardship, our nation, in fact our entire world, has been bombarded with emotional bombshells, the kind that rattle our spirit and make us feel, well, exhausted. To his listeners, and again to us today, Jesus opens his arms and says, Come to me, and I will give you rest. My friend, this is our mission at Insight for Living Ministries, and it's my promise to you today, as long as God gives me breath, I will declare these promises from God as accurately and enthusiastically as I know how.

But I cannot walk this journey all alone. As we approach the 30th of June, the deadline that we face, I need people like you to come along with me. Now, why, you may ask? Because you and I hold the key to liberating people from their spiritual and emotional exhaustion. Together, we are stewards of the good news. So, my question to you, will you come alongside Insight for Living Ministries right now, with a generous financial gift? When you do, your gift will be used to reach battle-weary listeners.

Real people who crave real soul rest from Jesus, that you and I have come to rely on every day. Thank you for listening to my heart, and thanks for responding today. And let me explain how you can respond to Chuck Swindoll. We made it quite simple to get in touch. The quickest and most convenient way to give is to follow the simple instructions at insight.org slash donate. Some prefer to give through our mobile app. You can also give a contribution when you speak with one of our service representatives. If you're listening in the U.S., just call 1-800-772-8888. That's 1-800-772-8888.

Or go online to insight.org. I'm Dave Spiker. Join us again Tuesday when Chuck Swindoll finishes what he calls A Story for the Heart of Listening, right here on Insight for Living. The preceding message, A Story for the Heart of Listening, was copyrighted in 2016 and 2021, and the sound recording was copyrighted in 2021 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.