Bible Study with Fred, Mark 4, 21 to 34, part 3, ears to hear

 

Mark 4:21 ¶  And he said unto them, Is a candle brought to be put under a bushel, or under a bed? and not to be set on a candlestick? 22  For there is nothing hid, which shall not be manifested; neither was any thing kept secret, but that it should come abroad. 23  If any man have ears to hear, let him hear. 24  And he said unto them, Take heed what ye hear: with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you: and unto you that hear shall more be given. 25  For he that hath, to him shall be given: and he that hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he hath. 26  And he said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground; 27  And should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how. 28  For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear. 29  But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come. 30  And he said, Whereunto shall we liken the kingdom of God? or with what comparison shall we compare it? 31  It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when it is sown in the earth, is less than all the seeds that be in the earth: 32  But when it is sown, it groweth up, and becometh greater than all herbs, and shooteth out great branches; so that the fowls of the air may lodge under the shadow of it. 33  And with many such parables spake he the word unto them, as they were able to hear it.  34  But without a parable spake he not unto them: and when they were alone, he expounded all things to his disciples.

23 If any man have ears to hear, let him hear. 24 And he said unto them, Take heed what ye hear: with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you: and unto you that hear shall more be given. 25 For he that hath, to him shall be given: and he that hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he hath.

Both right and left were given something to start with, a belief in the power and reality of Jesus Christ, whether they believed Him to be merely a great teacher of morals and not God in the flesh as Thomas Jefferson believed or whether they believed that Christ is the Lord as Andrew Jackson believed. But, as the left looked more to government programs and the right looked more to war and military power as the “strong arm of the Lord” the spiritual power of the nation waned until now you’d be hard pressed to get an unchurched person to even enter a church except out of morbid curiosity.

Gone are the days when revivals would sweep a city and leave it changed for months, when even the most godless reprobates suddenly became more civil and more civilized, when in a city like New York hundreds of thousands would come to Christ through the Fulton Street Revival in a period of 18 months. God moved in a period of time that was cold for faith. Slavery divided the country on the brink of Civil War. There were 30,000 unemployed, homeless men in the streets of New York. Alcoholism and crime were rampant. A young minister began to pray by himself in 1857 and within a matter of months revivals had broken out around the city joined by men and women to the tune of 50,000. Within that 18 month span some people estimate a million people were saved.

It’s gone. God has taken the glory away from America. We traded that glory for our 30 pieces of silver. America is now Babylon and God is judging it. Read Revelation if you wonder what part America will play in the end. Why? Because of homosexuals? Abortionists? Drunks and drug addicts? Hardly. The glory has left America because Christians left the Bible and the God of the Bible. They traded their birthright for some bread and lentil soup like Esau and God’s hand of mercy and blessing is being pulled away from this country. Evangelical Christians stopped believing in the Divine Right of God and started believing in the Divine Right of the State. Now, both left and right go to the polls and try to vote for a messiah and/or a national pastor. The left no longer believes in any god but their own good intentions and their own carnal desires and both left and right has chosen the god of war, Mars, and the Syriac word for money personified, Mammon, as their deities of choice. And even the little faith we have is being taken away from us as we speak.

26 And he said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground; 27 And should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how. 28 For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear.

God gives the increase. God gives blessings. We all know someone who is real tough that breaks under God’s word and someone who seems really nice and reasonable whose heart remains hard as a rock. It often makes no sense.

Here is another verse that underscores how man does not know why, or really know how.

Ecclesiastes 11:6 In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand: for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good.

Science, it can be admitted, is a very important way of understanding the world around us and predicting the way things will work. But, the truth is, that mankind reads his conclusions back into the data to come up with a comprehensible explanation of why things happen. There is a philosophical ignorance that even the most intelligent people have.

Don’t assume you know what God is going to do. Don’t assume you know what is going on in a person’s heart. In our modern world we want precision and are slaves to a clock but there are things we simply can’t know. We witness, we pray, and yet it is God who gives the increase.

You plant the seed, you water, and you pray and wait on the Holy Spirit to work, knowing that you might not witness the results on this earth. There are humanistic seminars given on soul winning, on how to manipulate people into a “decision for Christ.” These remove the fact that there is a loving God working on a heart willing to believe and a soul winner sent by God to that person. It is not a sales job, a psych job, an emotional manipulation or magic. If you reduce it to a humanistic approach it is not of God.

We have to get past a world of owner’s manuals, step-by-step instruction booklets, sales seminars, and time clocks and open ourselves back up into a world where a living God engages willing hearts and sends out ministers to minister. And just accept the fact that you don’t know what’s going to happen when you measure out the word. You just know that God will get the glory.

Isaiah 55:11 So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.