He spoke in parables and other cryptic ways SPECIFICALLY said, so they WOULDN'T hear and obey.
To His Disciples He flat out told them He would be crucified, die, and be Resurrected. ONLY them.
I understand your reference to what Jesus said after giving his parable of the sower, but I think that you are misunderstanding what he actually said. In other words, you seem to be of the mindset that people other than Jesus' disciples never understood his parables, but that is not true.
Mat 21:33
Hear another parable: There was a certain householder, which planted a vineyard, and hedged it round about, and digged a winepress in it, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country:
Mat 21:34
And when the time of the fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the husbandmen, that they might receive the fruits of it.
Mat 21:35
And the husbandmen took his servants, and beat one, and killed another, and stoned another.
Mat 21:36
Again, he sent other servants more than the first: and they did unto them likewise.
Mat 21:37
But last of all he sent unto them his son, saying, They will reverence my son.
Mat 21:38
But when the husbandmen saw the son, they said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance.
Mat 21:39
And they caught him, and cast
him out of the vineyard, and slew
him.
Mat 21:40
When the lord therefore of the vineyard cometh, what will he do unto those husbandmen?
Mat 21:41
They say unto him, He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out
his vineyard unto other husbandmen, which shall render him the fruits in their seasons.
Mat 21:42
Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes?
Mat 21:43
Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.
Mat 21:44
And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.
Mat 21:45
And when the chief priests and Pharisees had heard his parables, they perceived that he spake of them.
Mat 21:46
But when they sought to lay hands on him, they feared the multitude, because they took him for a prophet.
There is no reason to believe that the chief priests and Pharisees did not understand what Jesus was saying here. For starters, Jesus' parable was basically a retelling of what the prophet Isaiah had written (Isaiah 5:1-7), and you can bet your bottom dollar that the chief priests and Pharisees were quite familiar with that portion of scripture. You can also rest assured that they perfectly understood that "his servants" and the "other servants" who were beaten and killed were the Old Testament prophets. Furthermore, they definitely understood that Jesus' references to "his son" and "my son" were references to himself. In other words, elsewhere, they sought to stone Jesus for claiming to be God's Son. You can also be certain that they understood Jesus' citing of Psalm 118:22-23 in verse 42, and how Jesus was equating himself with that stone.
Anyhow, we are plainly told that "when the chief priests and Pharisees had heard his parable
s," plural, "they perceived," or they understood, "that he spake of them (the chief priests and the Pharisees)." Again, as I have said to somebody else here, understanding something and believing something are not necessarily synonymous. When it comes to Jesus' dealings with the likes of the scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, and chief priests, they did not want to kill him because they did not understand what he was saying. Instead, they wanted to kill him because they did understand what he was saying, but they did not believe in him.