In the 4th chapter of Mark’s gospel we find Jesus speaking to “great multitudes” of people (vs 1) who had followed Him out of Capernaum to the nearby shore of the Sea of Galilee (also called the Sea of Capernaum).  Finding Himself surrounded and unable to address the huge crowd, He and the disciples got into a boat and rowed it out from the shore so that He could speak to the people.  From this unobstructed location He was able to teach them “many things” concerning “His doctrine” (Mk. 4:2).  As we learn in the narrative, He spoke to them exclusively in “parables” (vs 2), using plays on words (riddles) instead of normal, straight forward speech.  In 4:34 it is noted that Jesus spoke to the multitudes ONLY IN PARABLES.  At one point His disciples asked Him why He used parables when teaching the people who flocked to Him.  They noted that He spoke to them (the disciples) plainly.  It was obvious to them that the people, often numbering in the thousands, flocked to Him in order to hear His words.  Many of them had come from great distances.  So why did He use confusing language when talking to them?   Jesus replied to the disciples’ question: “You are allowed to KNOW THE MYSTERY OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD, but to THOSE WHO ARE OUTSIDE (of His flock) I SPEAK IN PARABLES so that, though they see (His miracles) they cannot perceive (their message), and though they hear (His Words) they cannot understand (their spiritual meaning) (vss 10-12.)  Did not the Messiah want the people who came to hear Him to be saved?

Jesus loved the disciples who followed Him and absorbed His teachings.  For this reason He taught them in plain language which made His messages easily understood.  But did He not love the thousands who followed Him, heard His teachings and witnessed His miracles?  In some cases thousands of people followed Him for days as He walked from one place to another.  At one point 7,000 men, not counting women and children, had been following Him so long that they had used all of the food and spent all the money they had brought with them.  He miraculously fed all of them.  There were probably between twenty and thirty thousand people in that group.  On another occasion He preached to, healed all of their sick and delivered all of those possessed by devils.  Again, He spoke only in parables.  The question is, why?  Were they not part of “the world” that the Father loved so much that He sent Him to die for them?  If so, why did He speak to the masses ONLY IN PARABLES (riddles) which they could not understand?  Why did He not want them to know the “mysteries of the Kingdom of God”–the future home of His church?  Why did He not tell them in plain language how to enter His Father’s kingdom?  What was it about them that disqualified them?  Let us “study to show ourselves approved of God” (2 Tim. 2:15) so that we can understand why so many reject God’s will and way.

Jesus explains why He spoke to the multitudes in parables in Matthew 13:15: “For this people’s heart (mind) is waxed (has become) gross (dull), and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes THEY HAVE CLOSED.”  He goes on to say that because THEY had turned their hearts away from Him and refused to embrace the spiritual aspects of what they saw Him do and heard Him say, He would not allow them to know how to be converted.  Without conversion there can be no salvation.  Read The Process of Salvation.  Key word–Process.  Jesus refused to cast His precious “pearls” of knowledge, wisdom and understanding before those He knew would reject His message.  He knew that they came only to be healed of their diseases and delivered from demonic bondage.  He knew they were only interested in what He could do for them physically.  They had no use for His message which contradicted what they wanted to hear.  They were the spiritual descendants of the people God’s Old Testament prophets had to deal with.  These were God’s “Chosen People” about whom He said:  “This is a rebellious people, lying children who will not hear the Law of the Lord, who say to the prophets, ‘Do not speak God’s Truth to us, prophesy not to us right things, speak to us smooth things, prophesy deceits.  Stop telling us right things; stop placing the Holy One before us; stop speaking His Words to us'” (Isa. 30:9-11). After explaining why He spoke to the masses in parables, Jesus said to the disciples: “But blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear” (vs 16).  Their hearts were open to every aspect of His ministry.  Therefore He spoke to them plainly.  And yet one of them would later reject Him.  Today the numbers are reversed; only a few thousand out of the world’s three billion professing Christians believe and obey His Words.  Nothing has changed.  Like those of Paul’s day, most modern “followers of Jesus” are leaving (church services) religiously full but spiritually empty.  Such captives have received “another Jesus” (2 Cor. 11:4). Because they are “dull of hearing” and “hooked on milk” they reject the Words of the Lord and “put Jesus to an open shame” by failing to obey Him.  Read Hebrews 5:11-6:6.

Some 25 years after Jesus taught and performed miracles on the earth the Apostle Paul warned in his second letter to the church in Thessalonica that the parishioners must obey what He (Jesus) taught–His Father’s Law/Word/Truth.  They had to be diligent in their Christian walk because Satan had placed people in the church whose commission was to deceive God-seekers into believing his (Satan’s) false “truths.”  Paul warned those who followed Satan’s false prophets that they would perish because they did not love God’s Truth (2:10-12) and therefore did not obey It.  Because of their rejection of His Word, “GOD will send them strong delusion so that they will believe a lie and be damned for embracing unrighteousness.”

Today the vast majority of church people are living in a state of delusion.  Rather than love God’s Truth, they reject It.  By rejecting that Truth they PROVE that they DESPISE BOTH GOD AND CHRIST (Lk. 10:16).  As the Lord warned He would do, HE sends “STRONG DELUSION” to those in the church who despise Him and His Son while believing Satan’s lies, smooth things and deceits.  The DELUSION is that they are saved and born again in this life simply by completing a prescribed ritual, taking Jesus as their Savior, joining a counterfeit church and believing the perverted Gospel being taught by its leaders (Gal. 1:6-9).

The LIE is that, having completed the ritual, etc., the God Who has supposedly saved them has freed them to sin with the assurance that they will inherit eternal life.  They need only repent following each inevitable sin and believe that Jesus has made it go away.   A god does indeed assure those of “the church” of that “truth.”  However, that god is the god of this world–Satan–who has, “blinded the minds of those who do not believe God’s Word so that the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, Who is the image of God, can shine on them” (2 Cor. 4:4).”

Having rejected the light of Christ’s gospel, these despisers live in the darkness of their god’s perverted gospel (Gal. 1:6-9).  This is the same god who deceived Adam and Eve into believing the same lie and to walk in the same darkness.  Nothing has changed.  The same god continues to tell the same lie to Adam and Eve’s religious descendants which results in the same outcome.  Today the religious masses continue to believe, worship and serve the god of this world who has convinced them that they are believing, worshiping and serving the true God.  NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF SATAN.  L.J.