Psalm 119:11
I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.
The
gracious words of Christ are for the sons and daughters of grace, not for the
Gentile nations whose chosen symbols are the lion, the eagle, the dragon and
the bear.
The
notion that the Bible is addressed to everybody has wrought confusion within
and without the church. The effort to apply the teaching of the Sermon on the
Mount to the unregenerate nations of the world is one example of this. Courts
of law and the military powers of the earth are urged to follow the teachings
of Christ, an obviously impossible thing for them to do. To quote the words of
Christ as guides for policemen, judges and generals is to misunderstand those
words completely and to reveal a total lack of understanding of the purposes of
divine revelation. The gracious words of Christ are for the sons and daughters
of grace, not for the Gentile nations whose chosen symbols are the lion, the
eagle, the dragon and the bear.
Not only
does God address His words of truth to those who are able to receive them, He
actually conceals their meaning from those who are not. The preacher uses
stories to make truth clear; our Lord often used them to obscure it. The
parables of Christ were the exact opposite of the modern
"illustration," which is meant to give light; the parables were "dark
sayings" and Christ asserted that He sometimes used them so that His
disciples could understand and His enemies could not.
Matthew 13:10-17
The disciples came to him and asked, "Why do you speak to the people
in parables?"
He replied, "The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven
has been given to you, but not to them.
Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever
does not have, even what he has will be taken from him.
This is why I speak to them in parables: "Though seeing, they do not
see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand.
In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: "'You will be ever
hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.
For this people's heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their
ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their
eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would
heal them.'
But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they
hear.
For I tell you the truth, many prophets and righteous men longed to see
what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.
The natural man must know in order to believe;
the spiritual man must believe in order to know.
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