Once again I’m joining you with another edition of “Roz ki Roti” program. I hope that you received blessings of God after watching the previous episode and we hope that you will continue to receive more blessings and more spiritual sustenance from this series “Roz ki Roti” that we’ve started – so that we’re better prepared to face the devil at the end of times. As we mentioned that we will be learning and studying the Bible. We will learn different chapters and verses – and as I learn I will share the teachings and message of God with you.Last week on “Roz ki Roti” we talked about congratulatory messages, hope those of you who have watched it learned a lot from them, like I did.
Today we are going to talk about parables. Before we start talking about parables, we are going to surrender ourselves to your God Almighty so that he watches over us throughout the program. Let us all bow in prayer- “Dear almighty God we thank you for giving us this opportunity to talk to people, so that we can spread your message. We thank you for this opportunity and we request you to look after us throughout this program, Please bless me so that I can spread your message that I have learned to all our listeners and viewersso that they all can learn from you. In the name of your son Jesus, Amen.
Like I told you before, all should have the Bible in their hand while watching this program, we should all be holding the God’s messages in our hands, so that we can all read God’s messages together. Today we are going to talk about parables. Lord Jesus always talked in the form of allegory. Followers came to him and asked why do you always talk to us in allegories? He answered, “Because who will be giver they will have excess and whose don’t have even that will be taken away from them. I talk in allegory because people don’t see even when they are looking and don’t hear even when they are listening and they don’t understand. You will hear with your ears but you will never understand, you see with your eyes but will never know because fat has accumulated on the heart of this kingdom so they can’t hear and they have closed their eyes. It is not like they will see with their eyes, hear with their ears, but they will understand with their heart. Amen.
Why do we use parables? Why do we talk in the form of lessons and morals? So that people who are hearing us and listening to us can better understand us. Like in schools and universities various audio visual aids are used to form a better understanding of a topic. When we read these messages of God Lord Jesus’s purpose of using allegory is completely different. Jesus says, “I speak in allegory so that people sees but doesn’t look, listens but doesn’t hear”. We then think what the Lord means by this. He is speaking about those whose ears has been blocked by wrong doers, even though Gods message is clearly written in front of them they can’t understand them. The believers in God are followers of light. But the followers of darkness are those whose still don’t listen
Parables are used in various different ways. Each of the 4 sentences of the allegory God used has multiple meanings, these encourages us, warns us, challenges us, tells us about various negative and positive things and also tells us to condemn certain people. We learn many things from the multiple meanings of these parables. We see Lord Jesus has also commented on the same parable “people sees but doesn’t look, hears but doesn’t understand”. From this we understand Jesus wants to say that the believers will always understand. His parables always had two meaning. If we want to understand, we have to open our heart forget about all wrong doing, to understand his God’s message. Like all the people who are watching this video and listening to my message if you want to understand the things I am saying we have to open you heart and absorb the words only then will you understand. But if you are only hearing the words and listening carefully, if you don’t want to understand then there will be no use of my saying anything. But if you want to understand it will leave an impression on you. That is the reason why Jesus talked in parables.
Jesus taught us 7 parables. In these 7 parables he tried to teach his followers about certain things. In ours churches In 2 of these 7 parables are often discussed. One is the parable about sowing seeds. Seeds were sowed in 4 different places, each land was of a different type so the results were different. The other is about bitter seeds. Which you will find in the place in verse 36-43, Jesus has also preached the meaning of these two parables to his followers when the followers asked him their meaning, one about seeds being sown in different types of land for different results and the one about when seeds were sown but the devil came and replaced them with bitter seeds. The followers didn’t ask themeaning of other parables and Jesus didn’t preach them their meaning.
Today I am going to share with you what I understood from the other 4 parables, what is the purpose of these parables in our lives. We will start from “the rye seed” parable which you will find in verse 13 chapter 31. ‘If presented one more parable to him and said the king of heaven is of the rye seed which somebody has sown in his field it is smaller than all other seeds but it grows so tall that birds can come and sit on its branches. We will study this parable in 3 parts, we will first study the rye seed, then we will study the part where it grows to become the tallest and in the end we will study the part where birds and flock set upon it. You can find the same parable in Marcus and also in Luca.
What is the Kingdom of heaven? – It is the body of the believers. People like us and the churches are God’s people. From us God gets his strength. The rye seed signifies faith within believers. In other verses as well rye is used to signifies faith. It is said that even if you have as little belief as a rye seed if you tell a mountainto sink, a mountain will sink. Rye seed is the smallest, if we have the smallest amount of faith like a rye seed god will make it grow. Faith grows by listening to God’s verses that we get from the Bible. We have to listen, understand, study and abide by the Bible. Even if a little amount of faith is sown in our heart it will bear fruit like a rye seed does when it grows. The third part is when a rye seed becomes a big tree. Faith started growing from 12 followers and grew immensely. Like the rye seed is small, there was only 12 followers in the beginning, and from only one person like me bigger groups are formed gradually. The initial 12 followers went to all corners of the word to spread God’s message and because of them we became believers. Faith always starts increasing from a small number. From a small number of believers we grow to become a large group by learning from God’s verses. Like me I had small amount of faith in me but as I keep studying and reading the verses the faith in me keeps increasing and the faith in me will gradually grow as big as a tree. The same way churches grow. When the faith inside us grows as big as a tree, then birds come and sit on its branches. The birds of air in this idiom is often used to signify minister of Satan. In the holy book birds often represent messengers of Satan. And if we look at them in worldly terms, if I’m a big tree and there are spiritual fruits in me, then people who follow Satan and distort the message of God try to damage your fruits like birds that damage the fruits of a tree. The distorters of God’s message destroy the Church. In the third part God tells us that in the end times we should be wary of these “birds of air” which present false doctrines and not let them become part of our Church. Once I understood this allegory I saw that when the disbelievers accept Jesus and God their faith is weakbut as they slowly understand the teachings of God they become a large shady tree. But they should try to keep themselves away from false teachings and try to keep themselves pure and not let the impurities affect them. I hope that I explained this allegory to you as I understood it myself.
Now let’s move on to the next one. Another allegory was told of the yeast that a woman keeps adding to flour and it slowly becomes yeast in entirety. Who is the ruler of the heavens? It is the bodies of the believers and we ask ourselves what is yeast. We take it as sins as whenever God mentions yeast it is mentioned in the context of sin. Avoid bread with yeast for 7 days and from the first day remove the yeast from your homes. Because anyone who consumes bread with yeast during these 7 days they will be ejected from the House of Israel. So for 6 days you can eat the bread without yeast but on the 7th day the yeast should be removed from your home. This order was given by God so that for the day of Sabbath they should be pure and sanctified. The yeast was to be destroyed because it spoils the things it comes in contact with. This is signified by the fact that Jesus has always said of himself that he is the bread of life. He didn’t say he was the yeast bread, instead he said just bread. Now we see verses 6 to 12 where Jesus said to him beware of the yeast of the Farisis and Sadukhis ! They stated publicizing among themselves that they had no bread. Jesus learned of this and asked them why they publicize that they have no bread. Have they not understood? Have you forgot the 5 rotis(bread) of the 5000 and how much bread they lifted? And what of the 7 breads of 4000 men? Beware of the yeast (corruption) of the Farisis and Sadukhis ! Then he understood that the warning was not about the yeast of the Farisis and Sadukhis but in fact about their corrupt teachings. Please keep a note of this reference. Read from verse 5 to 12. You will see the Lord’s use of this allegory very clearly in the 13th chapter. The majesty of God is like that yeast that a woman mixes into 3 parts of flour. It’s mentioned as 3 parts flour because as per a Jewish tradition to mix 3 parts of flour with yeast for a meal. Abraham was visited by Jesus and 2 angels then Sarah baked bread for them in this way. Even today in Arabian culture and Jewish culture they prepare bread this way. So if you understoodthe meaning of yeast here then you will also have understood the meaning of sin. What is the kingdom of heaven? The bodies of the believers. If we mix the teachings of the world with our spiritual teachings, then we are mixing yeast(sin) in the bodies of the believers. God has already mentioned what will happen to the Church in the end of times i.e. they will become corrupted with sin and start spreading false teachings. Therefore, we should not add new things into the teachings and keep it pure. Even today when we look at the Churches and see 2nd Timothy from verse 1 to 5 we see that in the end of days drinking, dancing, lust and other evils will be introduced. So we must keep our Church and our teachings pure. In the third chapter of Revelation, the Church of Thyatira was also sent the same message where Isabel was leading the people astray. So we should not encourage those among us who distort the message, instead the prophet Paul says we should be wary of such people.
I’ll read the next allegory for you from chapter 13 verse 44. The Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field which a man hid after finding it and in his excitement he sold it off all his belongings and kept the field. In verse 45: the Kingdom of Heaven is like that trader in search of fine pearls and when he found a valuable pearl he sold whatever he had kept that pearl. The world used for field here basically means the world and seeds, pearls, treasure etc. are always mentioned by God as our people – the gentiles. We are the hidden treasures and the trader is Jesus who came to this world/field to save us from our sins. In this allegory God explains to us how much he loves us and how much he values as and wants to redeem us. Jesus came to us to find and redeem the lost ones, like the lost sheep of Israel. Now we have to surrender ourselves in front of God to show that we love God. All this was done by him for us. I hope you learned from these allegories how much Jesus loves as. He went to cross just to save us. We have heard a lot about the allegories of sowing seeds and bad seeds etc. but I thought I’d share whatever I’ve learned with you. I pray to God and thank him for saving us and hope that he doesn’t let anyone corrupt our faith with sin and give us the strength to combat the devil. I also pray that those who watched and listened today also prepare themselves for the end of times. Amen.