I preached through Mark 4:1-32 this past weekend at my church.  This passage records several familiar parables taught by Jesus.  The most notable among them is the parable of the sower.

For any that may not be entirely confident as to what a parable is, Wikipedia defines it as “a brief, succinct story…that illustrates a moral or religious lesson.”

Jesus Taught in Parables:

After Jesus told the story of the sower he shared with his disciples why he taught in parables.  Mark 4:11-12 records this:

“And he said to them, “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables, so that they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven.”

We learn from these verses that part of the reason Jesus used parables was in order to maintain a distinction between two groups of people: those who ‘had been given the secret of the kingdom of God’ and those who had not.

Judgment for Sin:

But why maintain this distinction?  Why not let everyone in on the secret?  The answer is as simple as it is sobering: judgment for sin.

God often judges the present hardness of our hearts by  disabling our ability to make them soft again in the future.  The callousness, blindness, and deafness of our spiritual organs is often the product of our own lack of response to the spiritual stimuli God’s grace has been pulsating our way for years.

Over and over again in the Scriptures people who are consistently rebellious, unfaithful, and unbelieving toward God, even despite their having been given ample instruction and evidence of His power and favor, are described in terms of having deficient spiritual senses (Scripture references). This lack of ability to sense and believe God’s revealed truth is God’s present judgment for sin in their lives.

Apart from God’s gracious and miraculous healing of spiritual senses in the lives of those He’s redeemed, no one would be able to see the kingdom revealed through Jesus’ parables.

Back to Mark 4:

The problem in this passage comes when we read into it a view that the people who were kept ‘outside’ of the secret of the kingdom were good, innocent people desirous of the truth of God and the revelation of his kingdom.  This is not the case.

In fact, we know from Mark’s previous chapter that these same people had begun to attribute Jesus’ ministry of miracles to the power of Satan.  That’s pretty bad—so bad, in fact, that its referred to there in Mark 3:28-30 as the unforgivable sin.

Two Final Maxims:

This passage of Scripture and the questions that surface from it center upon the realization that some people undeservedly experience God’s salvation while others deservedly do not.  This is not a pleasant or easy subject to consider.  Here are two parting words of wisdom.  These two truths will help to guide our thoughts within this sensitive realm of discussion:

1. God’s judgment of sin is always just.
2. God’s forgiveness of sin is always a miracle.

Now It’s Your Turn:

How would you respond to someone if they read Mark 4’s account of Jesus’ reason for speaking in parables and asked you why it is that God saves some people and doesn’t save others?