Get It? Got It? Good!, Part 1

Well, let's be perfectly transparent. Sometimes the words of Jesus surprise us. In fact, sometimes when we read what Jesus said, we're, well, kind of perplexed. His stories, His metaphors leave us scratching our heads. Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll is teaching from Matthew chapter 13.

In this section of scripture, the writer recorded several different stories from Jesus. And during today's program, Chuck provides helpful context so we can fully understand what Jesus was saying to His disciples. Chuck titled today's message, Get it?

Got it? Good. Years ago at another church, I was serving an older gentleman who had been in ministry for many more years than I. He came up to me following a service, and he said, Can I talk with you about something?

I said, Sure. He said, I listen very carefully, especially when you present the gospel. And he said, I always appreciated that you make it known that Christ died for our sins and that it's all about His grace and it's the blood of Christ. And he said, But often you leave out a very important word.

Okay, what is it? He said, It's the word complete. He paid the complete penalty for our sins. He said, When you tell people he he paid for our sins, they they probably think he made a down payment.

Like there's something left to pay. Make it clear that when he died, he he paid it all. The complete payment for sin. Donald Barnhouse, who lived years ago and was one of the main voices for Christ and the previous generation out of pulpit in Philadelphia for many years, used to say, It's important we know what that that him says.

It does not say. Jesus paid three fourths one fourth to him. We owe sin left a crimson stain.

He washed it light pink. There's just something wrong with it. Not only does it not rhyme is heresy. So always remember this. When you look at the cross, the complete payment for sin, the penalty held against you and me for our sins. The complete payment was made by his blood as he died for us. When he said it is finished, he meant it. Not only was the work of salvation finished, but our needing to add anything to that work was all over. No amount of sacrificing, no amount of penance, no long term attempt to earn or buy or somehow find a way to add to our salvation is needed.

He paid it all. If you've never trusted in this one who paid it all for you, what on earth are you waiting for? You may not feel the intense need for that right now, though I would probably argue with you in your down moments. You certainly need him. But when you pass from this life to the next, that's the only thing you will have to claim as your ticket into his heaven. Trust in him with all your heart.

Lean only on him. Be assured that he paid the complete penalty for your sin. And at any time you wish in this service or any place around here or any time at home, the Lord grips you, you turn your heart over to him. And once you've done that, you never have to do that again. You are eternally secure once you trust in Jesus.

Until then, you're not at all secure. Now for the second message of the day, I'd like to have you turn to Matthew chapter 13. We're going to be looking at verses 44 through 52 as we continue on through these short stories that Jesus told when he was not only with the masses, but as in this case, when he's with a small group of his disciples.

We'll see how I know that when we get into it. Matthew 13, beginning at verse 44, you follow along. Verse 44, the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure that a man discovered hidden in a field. In his excitement, he hid it again and sold everything he owned to get enough money to buy the field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant on the lookout for choice pearls. When he discovered a pearl of great value, he sold everything he owned and bought it. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a fishing net that was thrown into the water and caught fish of every kind.

When the net was full, they dragged it up onto the shore and set down and sorted the good fish into crates, but threw the bad ones away. That is the way it will be at the end of the world. The angels will come and separate the wicked people from the righteous, throwing the wicked into the fiery furnace where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Do you understand all these things?

Yes, they said, we do. Then he added, every teacher of religious law who becomes a disciple in the kingdom of heaven is like a homeowner or a housemaster who brings from his storeroom new gems of truth as well as old. 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 that he titled Get It, Got It, Good. Ted talks have taken the world by storm. It's an amazing thing that a speaker can stand in front of a group of people. They don't know each other, but within a matter of a very few moments, that individual has captured their attention, which is one of the goals of all Ted talks. You grab the attention of the listener. You communicate things that are interesting.

And in the long run, you inspire these people who listen to reimagine their lives. If you're involved with social media, you certainly have seen some Ted talks yourself. One man has called them the gold standard for public speaking. Ted stands for technology, entertainment, design. And when you hear someone who is a presenter at the Ted talk gatherings, you find that that individual is in fact a representative of one of those areas.

And he or she could divide his talk in one of three parts. It is emotional in that it touches the heart of the listener. It is novel in that they teach things you didn't know before. And it's memorable as they present things that had content you just cannot forget.

One of their desires is to have jaw-dropping illustrations. If you've ever watched a Ted talk, you know how true that is. One lady said, as she spoke for a few moments, you have probably never seen a human brain. So she snaps her finger and a person walks out with a tray. On the tray is a human brain. So she drags it off. It has a spinal cord dangling down. She said this is a human brain. Right about then, nobody else is thinking about lunch.

Nobody's thinking about that afternoon. Everybody is riveted onto the brain and the spinal cord and what she has to say about it. Bill Gates was one of the presenters and as many of you know, he and his wife are involved in philanthropic activities in places that are in the third world, people who are without clean water or they haven't enough food or whatever.

And they use some 90% of their income for those purposes. He's there as he presents his particular talk on the ravages that malaria can bring. He said, isn't it amazing that a tiny, tiny insect, a mosquito can penetrate the skin of a human being and within a matter of hours, if not before long that day, there's dysentery, high fever, loss of energy and quite possibly brought to the doors of death. Just a mosquito.

May not seem that important. So he pulls a veil off a glass dome that's sitting beside him on a table and he said, in this dome is a swarm of mosquitoes. Here, I'll just let them out. So, whoosh, I call that a jaw-breaking, jaw-dropping illustration. All of a sudden you don't want to get stung.

Obviously they're not of that particular disease, but you get the feeling it's just a tiny little insect. Oh, I forgot to tell you, all TED Talks cannot go longer than 18 minutes. Long enough to be taken seriously, but short enough so as to keep people's attention. And also the third reason is that I would never be invited to speak at a TED Talk because I can't get my Bible open in 18 minutes. But I'm fascinated by this unique presentation. There's this incredible ability to communicate because you can hear the song in the heart of the presenter.

You don't get invited without having a song in your heart, which is another way of describing passion. If a person is not inspired by what the subject is, you as a listener will never be inspired in return. While watching one this past week, and I haven't watched many in my life, but I was told about it from a friend of mine and I got on the internet and pulled one up. It was fascinating. I thought while watching Jesus would have been the perfect TED presenter. Think about it.

Perfect. Impeccable material that grabs attention. Ideas so original, many had never heard the things before. And memorable delivery, how about reimagining your life after hearing Jesus speak.

Every one of us would. Many did in his day. And talk about a TED Talk going viral, Jesus would have done so. And by the way, he never talked longer than 18 minutes. It's always bothered me about him, but he knows better than I do how long it takes.

Throw them out, 15 minutes. Most of the parables, from a minute to three minutes, and you've got them. He's grabbed your attention.

He's caught it. Before you know it, he's driving home something that matters. Matthew 13 is a chapter full of these kind of talks. They're called parables, a familiar setting placed alongside something of a spiritual nature that's unfamiliar, and the familiar helps illustrate what it means in the unfamiliar. It's interesting when you get to the first part of Matthew 13, that he's not even in a room where there are not distractions. He is in fact, verse one, sitting beside a lake. In fact, he's in a boat and his audience is standing up. He's sitting in a boat and they're standing up. So they could get tired, they could shuffle around, they could be distracted by whatever noise or whatever birds in the air, whatever sounds in the distance.

But I read nothing of their being distracted. He tells them first about souls and soil. As he describes, seed that's thrown on four different kinds of soil. And you're listening because you never heard anything like that before.

Nobody ever told that story before. And you realize soon that it isn't about dirt and actual seeds. It's about the soul and having the seed of truth sown in it. Some souls are hard. Some hearts are shallow.

Some are preoccupied and busy. Some have depth and are fertile, ready to take the truth. Now we know all of that because Jesus himself interpreted it. When you get to verse 24, he tells them another story. This one is about wheat and weeds of all things. They've never heard this story before though they have seen it through their lives. But he has a story to tell them so that they can understand how right and wrong grow up together.

Because the weeds would give a poisonous grain whereas the wheat a nourishing product. And rather than talking about jerking out the weeds early, he says let them grow together. You're curious about that. Let right and wrong continue. And then what? He doesn't tell them. He doesn't interpret that story. Until you get to verse 36. Look at the verse in Matthew 13. We read leaving the crowds outside, Jesus went into the house with his disciples.

Ah. Now he knows everybody in his audience. Earlier he didn't know most of them. There were many people on that lake shore that he had never met. They listened. He interpreted them.

Story. But he comes into the house and his 12 are there with him. I can imagine them as they look at him and say in the verse 36, what in the world were the wheat and weeds about?

What do you mean by that? Jesus doesn't rebuke them. He never shames his audience. He never makes you feel uncomfortable because you don't get it. Unless you don't care. If you care and don't get it, he'll help you out. They want to know. Really.

You remember the last time we were together? Well, the farmer is the son of man. And the field is the cosmos, the world system. The good seed represents people of righteousness. The bad seed represents the wicked. The enemy who planted the weeds, none other than the devil. And then there is the harvest, which is the end of the world. And there are the harvesters, the angels who separate the righteous from the unrighteous. There isn't much dialogue there. Because the story of the unrighteous has a very sad ending.

We read in verse 42, the angels throw them into the fiery furnace, where there'll be weeping and gnashing of teeth. I know. I know. You who went to the universities and sat under the teachers, who mocked stuff like this, you've been taught otherwise.

Or maybe you grew up in a family that was cynical and, hell, are you kidding? A literal lake of fire? Well, let me ask you, since he's never lied to us before, why would he now lie to us here, if there's nothing to it? What would prompt him to say what he does here and even say a similar thing a little later as we're going to see today, if there isn't a literal lake of fire?

And if there isn't literal eternal torment? Just because it makes us uncomfortable doesn't make it inaccurate. We're intrigued by it.

But we should be more than that. And I think the disciples were. You see, we read back into the disciples centuries of time. We give them credit for knowing things that I don't believe they had put together yet.

I think their jaws often dropped open as he told them what he had to tell them. You see what it says at the end of verse 43? And I say it to every one of you, anyone with ears to hear, you got those, don't you?

Of course you do. You should listen and understand what wise counsel. We fritter away our time watching television, looking for places to be entertained, how little we spend in silence listening.

So that we can come to an understanding of these truths. Having said that, I want to commend you. You are excellent listeners. Not every church I've served has had a congregation that listened like you do.

I commend you. We learn only when we listen. You can imagine the way the disciples listened to Jesus in rapt attention as He described the difference between those who follow Him and those who don't. Please hold your place right here in Matthew 13, because Chuck Swindoll will resume our study on Tuesday's program.

And he's in the studio to share a closing comment with you as well, so keep listening. To learn more about this ministry, please visit us online at insightworld.org. Even though Bible teaching is the primary focus of Insight for Living, we believe there's something very important that happens apart from this daily program.

It happens when you sit in a quiet place, along with your Bible, allowing the seed of God's Word to sink deeply into fertile soil. To help you in these moments, Insight for Living offers the Swindoll Study Bible. Offered in the New Living Translation, the Swindoll Study Bible is carefully designed to complement your quiet times as you listen intently for the message God wants to bring you. And with the Swindoll Study Bible, you'll gain access to decades of Chuck's personal study and insight laid side-by-side with the Scriptures.

To purchase a copy of the Swindoll Study Bible, go to insight.org slash offer. Well, 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.

Yeah, let me explain how you can respond to Chuck Swindoll. We've 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 today when you speak with one of our service representatives. If you're listening in the U.S., call us at 1-800-772-8888. That's 1-800-772-8888. Or go online to insight.org. Join us again Tuesday when Chuck Swindoll's study in Matthew chapter 13 continues, right here on Insight for Living. The preceding message, Get It, Got It, Good, 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.