Unbelief; The Reasons Behind it – Matthew 13

In the Parable of the Sower, The Messiah identifies several characteristics that will hinder belief. I focus on belief in this article because “without belief it is impossible to please Yah.”(Heb 11:6) All other manifestations of fruit stem from believing HIS Word. The hindrances to belief that are identified in this parable are usually glossed over. May that not be the case with you…

The text of the Parable;

Mat 13:4 “The Sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some indeed fell by the wayside, and the birds came and devoured them.”

The Messiah’s explanation;

Mat 13:18-19 “You, then, hear the parable of the sower: “When anyone hears the word of the reign, and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is that sown by the wayside.”

The Creator has given everyone autonomy in choice. I say this because earlier in the chapter, Yahshua states that some are not given ears to hear, eyes to see nor a heart to receive HIS Word, quoting Isaiah 6:9-10. Isaiah 6 focuses on the distinction between himself and those around him. Isaiah recognizes his uncleanness and admits it. Most of those around him were practicing lawlessness and rebellion. Isaiah hears the Word of Yah and sees his condition. The ninety percent do not. Why didn’t they? In the parable of the sower, The Messiah is applying Isaiah 6 to the current time. Because the majority were living in lawlessness (in opposition to HIS Commands), they too would not understand HIM and would not receive HIS Word into their hearts. The influence upon them is in direct proportion to their connection with the devil and his kingdom(this world). This prohibits them from understanding HIS Word. In fact, in John chapter 8, The Messiah likens the fruit of their lives as proof that they are sons of the devil. Consider;

John 8:43-44a“Why do you not know what I say? Because you are unable to hear My Word. You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you wish to do.”

Before we get to feeling too good about ourselves in comparison, we need to consider these words;

Ephesians 2:1-3 “And you were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the authority of the air, (birds of the air) of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once lived in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, as also the rest.”

Notice that Paul is speaking to them regarding their past, because when they had heard HIS Word they repented and were now able to hear clearer, receive more and increase in belief regarding the Word of YAH. Those who continue to walk “according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the authority of the air”, professing believer or not, do so through unbelief on the wayside…

The parable;

Mat 13:5-6 “And others fell on rocky places, where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, because they had no depth of soil. But when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered.”

The Messiah’s explanation;

Mat 13:20-21 “And that sown on rocky places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, yet he has no root in himself, but is short-lived, and when pressure or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles.”

This person at first is joyous to receive HIS Word, but notice in verse 6, “But when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered.”I can’t help but think that The Messiah used this wording to express something deeper. The influence of sun worship on world religions is remarkable! Is HE warning HIS own regarding this matter? I can say that when we saw the practices of sun worship permeating Christianity, our coming out of it was not without pressure! We have seen numerous people stumble under that “pressure” (lit; trouble, anguish) and the “persecution” (lit; pursue) described here! But for us who endure, the blessings have far outweighed the pressure!

Mat 5:10-12 Blessed are those persecuted for righteousness sake, because theirs is the reign of the heavens. Blessed are you when they reproach and persecute you, and falsely say every wicked word against you, for My sake. Rejoice and be glad, because your reward in the heavens is great. For in this way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

Mat 10:22 “And you shall be hated by all for My Name’s sake. But he who shall have endured to the end shall be saved.

The parable;

Mat 13:7 “And others fell among thorns, and the thorns came up and choked them.

The Messiah’s explanation;

Mat 13:22 “And that sown among the thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of this age and the deceit of riches choke the word, and it becomes fruitless.”

The one who hears HIS Word, but because the cares of this age or literally; the distractions offered in this life’s pursuits, will find themselves deluded by pursuing riches just as the devil tried to trip up The Messiah in offering HIM the reigns of the world… Consider;

Mat 4:8 Again, the devil took Him up on a very high mountain, and showed Him all the reigns of the world, and their esteem, and said to Him, “All these I shall give You if You fall down and worship me.” Then Yahshua said to him, “Go, Satan! For it has been written, ‘You shall worship Yahweh your Elohim, and Him alone you shall serve.’ (quoting Dt. 6:13)

1Ti 6:9-10 “But those wishing to be rich fall into trial and a snare, and into many foolish and injurious lusts which plunge men in ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some, by longing for it, have strayed from the belief, and pierced themselves through with many pains.”

The parable;

Mat 13:8-9 “And others fell on good soil and yielded a crop, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”

The Messiah’s explanation;

Mat 13:23 “And that sown on the good soil is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields – some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.”

The one who receives(hears) the Truth of HIS Word and comprehends(understands) it, who allows HIS Spirit to teach, comfort, guide, empower and gift him, will bear fruit in proportion to the amount of submission that he / she gives to HIS Word and HIS Spirit!

Rom 10:17 So then belief comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Elohim.

John 14:15-17 “If you love Me, you shall guard My commands. And I shall ask the Father, and He shall give you another Helper, to stay with you forever – the Spirit of the Truth, whom the world is unable to receive, because it does not see Him or know Him. But you know Him, for He stays with you and shall be in you.”

John 14:26 “But the Helper, the Set-apart Spirit, whom the Father shall send in My Name, He shall teach you all, and remind you of all that I said to you.”

John 16:13 “But when He comes, the Spirit of the Truth, He shall guide you into all the truth. For He shall not speak from Himself, but whatever He hears He shall speak, and He shall announce to you what is to come.

1Co 12:4 And there are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit1Co 12:9 and to another belief by the same Spirit

Gal 5:22-23 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustworthiness, (belief), gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no Torah.

Verses depicting unbelief;

Mat 13:58 “And He did not do many miracles there because of their unbelief.”

Why? Because they saw HIM, not as The Messiah, but according to the flesh; Joseph and Mary’s son. The fleshly perspective (in Adam) does not understand nor believe…

Mat 17:19-21 Then the taught ones came to Yahshua by Himself and said, “Why were we unable to cast him out?” And Yahshua said to them, “Because of your unbelief, for truly, I say to you, if you have belief as a mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it shall move. And no matter shall be impossible for you. But this kind does not go out except through prayer and fasting.”

Belief comes through relationship with Truth, (Word + Spirit) which results in selflessness.

Mar 9:24 And immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, “I believe Master, help my unbelief!”

A truthful confession of our belief (and unbelief), results in answers.

1Tim 1:13 me, although I was formerly a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and an insulter. But compassion was shown me because being ignorant I did it in unbelief.

Ignorance of The Truth results in unbelief. Scriptural belief is based only on The Truth.

Heb 3:18-19 And to whom did He swear that they would not enter into His rest, but to those who did not obey? So we see that they were unable to enter in because of unbelief.

Those who begin but do not continue to act on HIS Word will not continue in belief.

The choice is yours. Will The Messiah find you believing when HE returns? Luke 18:8 “But when the Son of Adam comes, shall He find the belief on the earth?”

The Parable of The Bride & The Whore – Matthew 13

Matthew 13:24-30 Another parable He put before them, saying, “The reign of the heavens has become like a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed darnel among the wheat and went away. And when the blade sprouted and bore fruit, then the darnel also appeared. And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? From where then does it have the darnel?’ And he said to them, ‘A man, an enemy did this.’ And the servants said to him, ‘Do you wish then, that we go and gather them up?’ But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the darnel you also uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I shall say to the reapers, “First gather the darnel and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my granary.”

Have you ever wondered why The Master chose to use the comparison of Wheat and Darnel in this parable? I have. Perhaps a look at the traits of both would be helpful;

Wheat

Wheat has been proven to help provide the body with energy, is effective in patients with metabolic disorders, helps prevent chronic inflammation, helps prevent gallstones, improves metabolism, helps reduce nausea, constipation, promotes woman’s health, helps prevent childhood asthma, is a good liver detoxifier, protects against heart disease, improves gut health, improves skin health, improves eye health, has anti-cancer properties, is a mood enhancer, and more!

Darnel

For many centuries, perhaps for as long as humans have cultivated cereal grains, wheat’s evil twin has insinuated itself into our crops. In a big enough dose, this grass, darnel, can kill a person, and farmers would have to take care to separate it out from their true harvest—unless they were planning to use darnel in achieving varying levels of intoxication. When its seeds are consumed, the affects are dizziness, imbalance, nausea, and impaired vision and speech. Its official name, L. temulentum, comes from a Latin word for “drunk.”

Looking at the comparison above, it appears that wheat is a metaphor representing fruitful lives receiving and growing in HIS Word. Darnel is a metaphor representing the counterfeit. These reject HIS Word, practice lawlessness in a spiritual drunken stupor, stumbling and becoming stumbling-blocks to others in their disobedience to HIS Word…

Now, let’s consider The Master’s explanation of the parable…

Mat 13:36-37 Then, having sent the crowds away, Yahshua went into the house. And His taught ones came to Him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the darnel of the field. And He answering, said to them, “He who is sowing the good seed is the Son of Adam.

The sower is identified as “the Son of Adam”,who according to the flesh, is a physical descendent of Adam, but through The Spirit, HE is Yahshua, The Son of Yahweh. HE came, “born of a woman“ to reverse the rebellion that occurred in Gen 3 by sowing “the good seed” (The Word) that has the potential of producing good fruit, depending upon the condition of the soil or person who receives it. (As seen in The Parable of the Sower)

Mat 13:38 and the field is the world. And the good seed, these are the sons of the reign, but the darnel are the sons of the wicked one,

Adam was created from the dust of the earth. Through birth we inherit Adam’s physical traits, his proneness to idolatry, his rebellion to The Word and subsequently, death. When HIS Word, “the good seed”, is received, falling “on good soil”, we experience true repentance allowing HIS Spirit to cultivate HIS Truth. As we mature HIS Spirit produces increasing fruitfulness through our lives, proving us to be wheat / “sons of the reign.” (See Article “True Repentance = True Conversion“)

However, when HIS Word falls“by the wayside, on rocky places or among the thorns” (Mat 13:19-22), it produces what may appear to be wheat for a time, but as time goes by the counterfeit / darnel becomes more obvious, (to those who know the difference), revealing who they truly are; “sons of the wicked one.”

Mat 13:39-43 “…and the enemy who sowed them is the devil. And the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are the messengers. As the darnel, then, is gathered and burned in the fire, so it shall be at the end of this age. The Son of Adam shall send out His messengers, and they shall gather out of His reign all the stumbling-blocks, and those doing lawlessness, and shall throw them into the furnace of fire – there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous shall shine forth as the sun in the reign of their Father. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!

There is a faithful Bride in covenant with Yahshua! And there is a faithless whore / idolater who is in covenant with the devil. The Faithful Bride is made up of those referred to in the parable as Wheat! The faithless whore / idolater is made up of those referred to as Darnel! They have an outward appearance of being part of the Bride of Messiah, but they are not.

Consider the following verses describing the judgment of the whore / idolater in light of the influence of darnel on those who partake of it! Darnel causes impaired vision and speech as well as the inability to walk straight. In Latin; “drunk.”

Jer 51:7 Babel was a golden cup in the hand of Yahweh, making drunk all the earth. The nations drank her wine, that is why the nations went mad! (mad; to rave foolishly)

Rev 14:8 And another messenger followed, saying, “Babel is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she has made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her whoring / idolatry.”

Rev 17:1-2 And one of the seven messengers who had the seven bowls came and spoke with me, saying to me, “Come, I shall show you the judgment of the great whore / idolater sitting on many waters, with whom the sovereigns of the earth committed whoring, and the inhabitants of the earth were made drunk with the wine of her whoring / idolatry.”

Rev 17:15 And he said to me, “The waters which you saw, where the whore / idolater sits, are peoples, and crowds, and nations, and tongues.

Rev 18:3 because all the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her whoring / idolatry, and the sovereigns of the earth have committed whoring / idolatry with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich through the power of her riotous / luxurious living.”

Rev 18:23 “And the light of a lamp shall not shine in you any more at all. And the voice of bridegroom and bride shall not be heard in you any more at all. For your merchants were the great ones of the earth, for by your drug sorcery (poison) all the nations were led astray / deceived.

What entity is large enough to affect all peoples, crowds, nations, tongues? Who proclaims to be in the “New” covenant with her “husband”, though she is not faithful to the vows (HIS Word / Commands) ? You decide…

7 Largest Belief Systems (Based on a World Population of approx 7 Billion)

Christianity (Including Romanism & All of Protestantism) (31.2% or 2.18B)

Islam (24.1% or 1.68B)

None (Secularism) (16% or 1.12B)

Hinduism (15% or 1.05B)

Buddhism (6.9% or 483M)

Folk Religions (5.7% or 399M)

Sikhism (0.29% or 20M 300K)

Judaism (0.2% or 14M)

Rev 18:4 And I heard another voice from the heaven saying, “Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues. Do You Hear HIM Calling?

Rev 20:12-15 And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before the throne, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged from what was written in the books, according to their works.(works; deeds, acts, fruit) And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, and death and the grave gave up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works. And the death and the grave were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And if anyone was not found written in the Book of Life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”

Rev 22:14 “Blessed are those doing His commands, so that the authority shall be theirs unto the tree of life, and to enter through the gates into the city.”

Footnotes: Long before the books were compiled to form “The New Testament,” Rev. 22:14 was quoted, as it is here given, by Tertullian (CE 208), and by Cyprian (CE 251) – see the well-known Antenicene Fathers.