WHO IS IT THAT HEARS , if not the one who does what he has heard? “Consider carefully what you hear.” (Mark 4:24a) Upon cautioning his disciples, Jesus immediately tells them that what they have been told imparts a burden of use. He speaks out of the Hebrew understanding of man’s required response to a word spoken by God. In the O.T., when God speaks sovereignly, he does so in one of two voices. He does so either creatively or authoritatively, using two very different Hebrew words. The first, “bara,” is used extensively in Genesis recounting the days of creation, and is a word that only God can speak. The second, “dabar,” has the connotation meaning “to listen and do,” and is used more widespread in those scriptures where either God or a man of authority is commanding and directing men’s activities.
But when God speaks, he does so in clear expectation of man’s full compliance with his will. It is always in the covenantal transactional relationship language of “if you, then I,” and it bears the consequences of blessings or curses. In the NT, in this same context, James most clearly says, “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does.” (James 1:22-25)
Abundance and lack are the opposing outcomes of our compliance to obedience to God’s will. Jesus says “Consider carefully what you hear,” he continued. “With the measure you use, it will be measured to you—and even more. Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him.” (Mark 4:24-25) In his parable of the sower, he is teaching about the seed principle in regards to the kingdom of heaven. This parable is recorded in all three of the synoptic gospels; it is not ignored by John, but he mentions it only inferentially in his third letter (cf.1 John 3:9). This parable is the key to understanding all of Jesus’ teachings: “Don’t you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable?” (Mark 4:13)
This goes far beyond teaching; for those “who have ears to hear” (Matt. 11:15) it becomes enlightenment. The seed principle literally has its roots in Genesis: God spoke, and “The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.” (Gen. 1:12) Further, “Let the land produce living things, each according to its kind.” (Gen. 1:24) In the agrarian age of Jesus’ time, everyone could clearly understand that seed produces a crop, and that a crop is a blessing. In times of famine it was literally life. Consider carefully, then, how important “the measure you use.” (Mark 4:24a) For the person diligent in planting seed, life was abundant. For the slacker, there would be hard times, perhaps even famine and the threat of death.
John sheds clarifying light for us on the seed principle, and he does so also from another root in Genesis, where and when God curses the serpent, “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring (seed) and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” (Gen. 3:15) John says, “No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in him. This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God…” (1 John 3:19)
In Jesus’ extended metaphor from these same teachings, he says, “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. Let both grow together until the harvest. First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.” (Matt. 13:24-25, 30)
Whether in O.T. or N.T., the warnings are crystal clear. Moses warned wandering Israel, poised at entry to the Promised Land, “If you full obey the LORD your God, you will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out.” (Deut. 28:1, 6) If not, “curses will come upon you and overtake you.” (Deut. 28:15)
Perhaps we will not be amongst those who are slow to hear, slower to obey. In the Parable of the Sower, Jesus is teaching the principles of the kingdom of heaven, and at the end asks his disciples this question: “Don’t you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable?” (Mark 4:13)
Consider carefully what you hear. Decide for your destiny both now and eternally whether you walk in curses or in blessings.
Q. Have I been obedient to the last thing I heard from the Lord?
Leave a Reply