Why Jesus and God Speak in Parables

2CO 4:3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. [4] The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. [5]

ISA 5:1 I will sing for the one I love
a song about his [God’s] vineyard:
My loved one had a vineyard
on a fertile hillside.

ISA 5:2 He dug it up and cleared it of stones
and planted it with the choicest vines.
He built a watchtower in it
and cut out a winepress as well.
Then he looked for a crop of good grapes,
but it yielded only bad fruit.

ISA 5:3 "Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and men of Judah,
judge between me and my vineyard.

ISA 5:4 What more could have been done for my vineyard
than I have done for it?
When I looked for good grapes,
why did it yield only bad?

ISA 5:5 Now I will tell you
what I am going to do to my vineyard:
I will take away its hedge,
and it will be destroyed;
I will break down its wall,
and it will be trampled.

ISA 5:6 I will make it a wasteland,
neither pruned nor cultivated,
and briers and thorns will grow there.
I will command the clouds
not to rain on it."

ISA 5:7 The vineyard of the LORD Almighty
is the house of Israel,
and the men of Judah
are the garden of his delight.
And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed;
for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.

ISA 5:8 Woe to you who add house to house
and join field to field
till no space is left
and you live alone in the land.

ISA 5:9 The LORD Almighty has declared in my hearing:
"Surely the great houses will become desolate,
the fine mansions left without occupants.

ISA 5:10 A ten-acre vineyard will produce only a bath of wine,
a homer of seed only an ephah of grain."

ISA 5:11 Woe to those who rise early in the morning
to run after their drinks,
who stay up late at night
till they are inflamed with wine.

ISA 5:12 They have harps and lyres at their banquets,
tambourines and flutes and wine,
but they have no regard for the deeds of the LORD,
no respect for the work of his hands.

ISA 5:13 Therefore my people will go into exile
for lack of understanding;
their men of rank will die of hunger
and their masses will be parched with thirst.

ISA 5:14 Therefore the grave enlarges its appetite
and opens its mouth without limit;
into it will descend their nobles and masses
with all their brawlers and revelers.

ISA 5:15 So man will be brought low
and mankind humbled,
the eyes of the arrogant humbled.

ISA 5:16 But the LORD Almighty will be exalted by his justice,
and the holy God will show himself holy by his righteousness.

ISA 5:17 Then sheep will graze as in their own pasture;
lambs will feed among the ruins of the rich.

ISA 5:18 Woe to those who draw sin along with cords of deceit,
and wickedness as with cart ropes,

ISA 5:19 to those who say, "Let God hurry,
let him hasten his work
so we may see it.
Let it approach,
let the plan of the Holy One of Israel come,
so we may know it."

ISA 5:20 Woe to those who call evil good
and good evil,
who put darkness for light
and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet
and sweet for bitter.

ISA 5:21 Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes
and clever in their own sight.

ISA 5:22 Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine
and champions at mixing drinks,

ISA 5:23 who acquit the guilty for a bribe,
but deny justice to the innocent.

ISA 5:24 Therefore, as tongues of fire lick up straw
and as dry grass sinks down in the flames,
so their roots will decay
and their flowers blow away like dust;
for they have rejected the law of the LORD Almighty
and spurned the word of the Holy One of Israel.

ISA 6:5 "Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty."

ISA 6:6 Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. [7] With it he touched my mouth and said, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for."

ISA 6:8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?"
And I said, "Here am I. Send me!"

ISA 6:9 He said, "Go and tell this people:

" `Be ever hearing, but never understanding;
be ever seeing, but never perceiving.'

ISA 6:10 Make the heart of this people calloused;
make their ears dull
and close their eyes.
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
hear with their ears,
understand with their hearts,
and turn and be healed."

ISA 6:11 Then I said, "For how long, O Lord?"
And he answered:

"Until the cities lie ruined
and without inhabitant,
until the houses are left deserted
and the fields ruined and ravaged,

ISA 6:12 until the LORD has sent everyone far away
and the land is utterly forsaken.

ISA 6:13 And though a tenth remains in the land,
it will again be laid waste.
But as the terebinth and oak
leave stumps when they are cut down,
so the holy seed will be the stump in the land."

PR 16:2 All a man's ways seem innocent to him,
but motives are weighed by the LORD.

1CO 4:5 Wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men's hearts.

JAS 4:1 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? [2] You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. [3] When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

ISA 51:7 "Hear me, you who know what is right,
you people who have my law in your hearts:

RO 2:13 For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God's sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. [14] (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, [15] since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.) [16] This will take place on the day when God will judge men's secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares.

MT 13:16 But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. [17] For I tell you the truth, many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.

MT 13:18 "Listen then to what the parable of the sower means: [19] When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is the seed sown along the path. [20] The one who received the seed that fell on rocky places is the man who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. [21] But since he has no root, he lasts only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away. [22] The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful. [23] But the one who received the seed that fell on good soil is the man who hears the word and understands it. He produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown."

ISA 29:10 The LORD has brought over you a deep sleep:
He has sealed your eyes (the prophets);
he has covered your heads (the seers).
ISA 29:11 For you this whole vision is nothing but words sealed in a scroll. And if you give the scroll to someone who can read, and say to him, "Read this, please," he will answer, "I can't; it is sealed." [12] Or if you give the scroll to someone who cannot read, and say, "Read this, please," he will answer, "I don't know how to read."
ISA 29:13 The Lord says:
"These people come near to me with their mouth
and honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
Their worship of me
is made up only of rules taught by men.
ISA 29:14 Therefore once more I will astound these people
with wonder upon wonder;
the wisdom of the wise will perish,
the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish."
ISA 29:15 Woe to those who go to great depths
to hide their plans from the LORD,
who do their work in darkness and think,
"Who sees us? Who will know?"
ISA 29:16 You turn things upside down,
as if the potter were thought to be like the clay!
Shall what is formed say to him who formed it,
"He did not make me"?
Can the pot say of the potter,
"He knows nothing"?
ISA 29:17 In a very short time, will not Lebanon be turned into a fertile field
and the fertile field seem like a forest?
ISA 29:18 In that day the deaf will hear the words of the scroll,
and out of gloom and darkness
the eyes of the blind will see.