The Lord Is My Shepherd – Part 7

Story Time

Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31)

Luke 16:31

A shepherd’s job is to lead and feed. God does both with His .

• Psalm 119:105 
• Matthew 4:4

Parable of the Sower Review

The parable of the Sower is really about how God us.

Four Kinds of Soil/Four Kinds of Listeners

• Wayside
• Stony
• Thorny
• Good

The parable of the Sower is the master key parable (Mark 4:13).

The parable of the Sower is the master key parable because it has insight into the nature of learning itself.

The key to the parable is not its interpretation, but its purpose.

• Matthew 13:10-11
• Matthew 13:12 
  • The having has to do with humility and the giving has to do with grace.
  • James 4:6
    • Grace gives us the capacity to see, know, and obey God.
    • Grace cannot be earned or
    • Grace can only be given and it must be given by God.
    • You can’t understand truth without God giving you the grace to understand it.
    • Matthew 13:12 (Dr. Joshua’s Version): “To the one who has [humility], more [grace] will be given, and he will have an abundance [of knowledge, understanding and wisdom], but from the who has not [humility], even [the grace that] he has will be taken away.”
•  
  • God leads and feeds people who know they don’t know, people who know their truth is not enough to feed their hunger for righteousness. (Matthew 5:6)
  • Our intellect must be paired with grace to discern truth.
  • Your mind can process facts, information, and feelings, but to discern truth, you need light from God.
    • Romans 1:19
      • What we think is plain because we can see it with our eyes is only clear because God is making it available to be seen.
    • Romans 1:20
      • God causes nature talk to us.
        • God causes nature to expose who He is to us.
        • Matthew 5:45
        • One of the other ways that nature talks to us is through our conscience (Romans 2:14–15)
      • Once we accept general revelation about God through nature, we are ready to receive special revelation about God in Scripture.
    • Romans 1:21
    • Romans 1:24-25
      • In giving them up, God locked them out.
      • God removed from them the grace to understand truth because they rejected the truth that they had.

• Matthew 13:13-15

All parables test for what kind of listener you are:

• The Level 1 listener (Wayside Soil):
  • Matthew 13:19
    • James 4:6–7
    • 2 Corinthians 4:4
    • When Satan blinds you, you don’t know that you don’t know. (Romans 1:22)

• The Level 2 listener (Stony Soil):
  • Matthew 13:20
    • Sequence
      1. Immediate and joyful reception.
      2. Temporary Endurance.
      3. Tribulation or Persecution
      4. Immediate falling away.
    • Sequence Explained
      1. Immediate and joyful reception.
      2. Temporary Endurance.
         1. There is endurance because there is no trouble.
         2. It is temporary because there is no root.
      3. Tribulation or Persecution
         1. The Word in our hearts attracts trouble. (Psalm 34:19)
         2. The trouble is a test.
         3. Luke 22:31–32
         4. Effective students know that class time is not the same as study time. To pass the test, you need both.
      4. Immediate falling away. 
         1. What does scriptural meditation look like?
         2. Reading, Talking, Listening, Pondering, Reflecting Day and Night

© Joshua D. Smith, Ph.D., 2021