Mark 4 Seeing but never perceiving
1 Again Jesus began to teach by the lake. The crowd that gathered around him was so large that he got into a boat and sat in it out on the lake, while all the people were along the shore at the water’s edge. 2 He taught them many things by parables, and in his teaching said: 3 “Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4 As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5 Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6 But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain. 8 Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, some multiplying thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times.”
Do not get discouraged if some of the seeds get eaten by the birds. However, I have to wonder about this farmer, maybe if he helped pull a few weeds some of these seeds would have done better. I can understand that some of these rocky places don’t have much soil, not the best place to grow, but couldn’t the farmer bring some mulch, use a little irrigation? My point is that as Christians we have seen all of this, we see the censors and other attempts to snatch the seed from you, but I feel that is on you. If you know that they lied to you about the Hunter Biden laptop why are you still listening to them? If you know that NY Times lied about having a top level cabinet official as a “deep throat” why do you still listen to them? Adam Schiff lied during the first impeachment, why do you still listen to him? Fauci lied, why do you still listen to him? At some point you need to take responsibility for whether or not these seeds grew in you.
9 Then Jesus said, “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.” 10 When he was alone, the Twelve and the others around him asked him about the parables. 11 He told them, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables 12 so that,
“‘they may be ever seeing but never perceiving,
and ever hearing but never understanding;
otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!’”
This seems unfair. How is this righteous judgement? Well, suppose a person does do their research, but not to perceive but rather so that they could not perceive. All of their arguments and questions are not so they could see, hear, or understand but rather so that they could not understand. I have seen this many times. For example a person recently asked me why I wasn’t vaccinated. That could be an honest question, maybe they are questioning whether they should get the vaccine. So I told them. They responded with all kinds of nonsense. But again, my thought was they are probably just regurgitating what they have been told, they could still be legitimately seeking the truth. So I gave them a list of ten logical questions I had concerning the virus and the vaccine that I wanted answered first. They responded in an ugly, accusatory way that I was trying to avoid their questions. I pointed out that I have been open with them, answered their questions so far but they are the one who has blown off my ten questions. They responded, “sorry, I didn’t see them”. It was an email with a big bold underlined headline that said “Ten logical and reasonable questions” followed by the ten questions listed 1-10. To say they didn’t see it meant they don’t read my responses. That is when it became very clear there was nothing legitimate about their questions. The Lord doesn’t get Himself tangled up in all this mess, rather he gives them a parable and they will be more than happy to use that to make sure they never perceive and never understand. We know why this is, it is because their heart is far from the Lord. We know that God desires all men to be saved and come to the full knowledge of the truth but some people come to the Lord and that is not their intention at all.
13 Then Jesus said to them, “Don’t you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable? 14 The farmer sows the word. 15 Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them. 16 Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy. 17 But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. 18 Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; 19 but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful. 20 Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop—some thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times what was sown.”
There are people who are like those along a path. They are like people who sit and watch mainstream television and are not interested in getting any word in too deeply, just skate along the surface. Some are like rocky places, we call them manic depressants, they get all excited about something one day and the next they are all withered up. Others are like those who live in the thorns, we call them ADHD, they have so many things going on they can’t stay focused for more than a few minutes. There are a lot of distractions, we need to learn to turn them off and get into the word. Yes, you can hear testimonies and messages on the internet and yes it can be very helpful. But at some point every day you need to get into the word yourself, no distractions. When I was a new Christian I would listen to messages from people I trusted, every week the same amount of time, I would also read one spiritual book at a time until I finished it. But the majority of my time was spent reading the Bible. I read the Bible cover to cover in a few months, by the time I had been in the church for 8 years I was asked to calculate how many times. I calculated that I had read the Bible cover to cover 25 times while I had read the books in the bible that we had gone over in trainings (about 20 books at that time) at least 100 times. I get it that not everyone will do that, but to not have read through the Bible at least 8 times in 8 years, that does not make sense to me.