The Candle Maker

Matthews 13 : 13 - 17, Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says: 'Hearing you will hear and shall not understand, and seeing you will see and not perceive; for the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, so that I should heal them.' But blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear; for assuredly, I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it. NKJV

When you read this passage of scripture and take it at face value, it appears as though Jesus doesn't want the Jews to be saved and healed. However, we know that just isn't the case because Jesus was sent by the Father to the household of Israel. He also tells us that He was sent to seek and to save that which was lost. Therefore, we need to study the Word of God and see what this portion of scripture really says so that we can learn truths from it that will help us receive the answers we need from the Lord.

Why did Jesus speak to the Jews in parables, if He was sent to save, deliver, and heal them? Conversely, why did He speak plainly with His own disciples so that they heard and understood the mysteries of the kingdom of God? Unlike the majority of the Jews in Jesus' day, His disciples obeyed Jesus when He commanded them to forsake all and follow Him. Because the disciples believed in Jesus and obeyed His commands, God gave them spiritual ears to hear and spiritual eyes to see. God also gave the disciples understanding so that they could perceive or grasp the truths that Jesus taught them. God did this for the disciples because they believed Jesus and placed their trust in Him as their Messiah.

Even so, we see the majority of the Jews still rejected Jesus and His testimony that He was the Son of God. Therefore, they HARDENED their hearts and rejected Him as their Messiah. Consequently, He could do no mighty works to help them. The hardness of their hearts kept or prevented God from releasing His power and favor upon His own people. Jesus gives us the reason why the Jews hearts were hardened and why they couldn't understand His parables. They repeatedly hardened their hearts to the prophets of God and to His Laws.  

When Jesus was speaking privately to His disciples, He used a term that refers to the making of candles as to why He used parables to speak to the Jews. The KJV says, "This people's heart is waxed gross. The NKJV says, "Grown dull." In Jesus' day, candles were formed by dipping wicks into hot wax and then pulling it out to allow the wick to cool. This process was repeated many times until the candle reached the thickness that the candle maker desired. In the same way, Jesus said that the Jews had hardened their hearts to God's Word over and over, until they could no longer hear the truth. In other words, their hearts were completely closed to God's voice, and now He could do nothing to help them. 

Here is the sobering part of today's teaching. The writer of Hebrews teaches us in chapter 3 that the Jews, who were led by Moses in the wilderness hardened their hearts to the voice of the Holy Spirit for forty years, even though they saw the mighty acts of God. Because the Jews constantly disobeyed God and hardened their hearts to His voice, they weren't allowed to enter His rest. All the Jews who had been delivered from the land of bondage died in the wilderness; they didn't inherit the Promised Land. Only those who were twenty years of age and younger were allowed to possess the promise of their inheritance from God.   

Let's put a draw string on this and bring it altogether. In the same way that the Jews could not enter the Promised Land because their hearts were hard and because of their unbelief, the Jews in Jesus' day didn't accept Jesus as their Messiah (Promised Deliverer). As a result, they also perished, just like their predecessors. The writer of Hebrews tells us that if God's own chosen people didn't inherit the promises of God because of their unbelief, then we (Gentile believers) should believe and obey God's Holy Spirit, lest we allow the promises to slip away from us, and we perish as well.

Should you hear the voice of God or the Word of God preached and choose to harden your heart because it doesn't agree with your carnal desires for sin, be careful that you don't harden your heart to the point that you cut your soul off from God's power and presence. It happens more than you might think. The generation that we're living in "chooses to believe" that their sin won't be punished. James calls this being deceived by ourselves. People who deceive themselves by ignoring the truths of God's Word so that they can continue sinning against it, don't need Satan or a person who lies to deceive them, they're already deceived by their own deceptive ways. 

God is calling His people to become broken over our evil ways. We must forsake them and return to Him with whole hearts. Therefore, we must be more than just hearers of the Word; we must also obey the truth so that it can save our souls from deception. God doesn't want us to be religious. God wants us to walk by faith and be obedient sons and daughters so that we will inherit the promises of God. All of God's promises are yes, and they are amen in Christ. You have an inheritance in Christ. Therefore, keep your heart humble and pliable to His voice, and you will possess His promises.

Seeking the Lord with My Whole Heart,
Pastor Asa Dockery