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Show PAHAI5LK OF JESUS m International Sunday School Lesson for March 6, 1949 MEMORY SELECTION "J )o not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that lie will also reap." Galaiians fi :7. Lesson Text Mark 4 -.1 -9, Luke 15 :11 As the hostility of 1he synagogue leaders became more pronounced against Jesus he changed his method of teaching. Until now he had spoken plainly and proclaimed pro-claimed great truths so that all might understand but, with the Pharisees seeking to entrap him, Jesus began to speak in parables. "Parables are scenes or short stories, taken from nature or from common life," says Hastings' Has-tings' Bible Dictionary, "which present in a picturesque and vivid way some thought or principle prin-ciple which is capable of being transformed to the high spiritual life of man." The parable teaches by comparison. The object ob-ject of nature or human happening happen-ing is placed beside truth so that it illustrates and Jesus explains ex-plains the latter. To the large crowd which gathered around the Sea of Gal-- Gal-- ilee, Jesus gave these parables, seated in a boat near the shore to avoid the crush of the multitude multi-tude which had followed him and awaited his word. Our lesson les-son this week considers what is generally accepted to have been the first parable used by Jesus, one which he explained himself I in detail to his intimate follow- may be aware, when he has left off being wholly preoccupied with his own powers and interests, inter-ests, with every petty plan that centers in himself, when he has cleared his eyes to see the world as it is, and his own true place and function in it . . . "Surely a man has come to himself only when he has found the best that is in him, and has satisfied his heart with the highest achievement he is fit for. It is only then that he knows of what he is capable and what his heart demands. And no thoughtful man ever came to the end of his life and had time and a little space of calm in which to look back upon it, who did not know and acknowledge that it was what he had done unselfishly for others, ' and nothing else, that satisfied- him in the retrospect, and made him feel that he had played the man." ers and disciples. From his seaside seat Jesus doubtless looked over a field and this comparison came to his mind. The sower of grain depended de-pended largely upon the nature of the soil upon which his seed fell for the harvest which would follow. So, as seed was generally gener-ally scattered by the sower. Jesus said, it fell on four kinds of soil, on the foot-trodden path shallow ground underlain with rock, in the midst of thorns, and on good tillable soil. In his explanation ex-planation of the parable he likened each kind of soil to a kind of hearer of the word of truth spoken by him. Seed which fell by the wayside way-side had no chance to germinate because the birds found it easily and ate it. So, in life, many hearts have become hardened and if the word reaches them it is quickly destroyed and taken away by evil. Happily for the sower, some seed falls on good ground, takes root, grows into maturity and yields a rich harvest. So with the life of those who hear the word, accept it fully and completely, com-pletely, pattern their lives according ac-cording to its truth and become a benediction and a blessing to those who come in contact with them. Jesus completed his parable by saying, "Who hath ears to hear, let him hear." Almost every person can locate himself or herself in one or the other of the classes of hearers represented represent-ed in the parable. The Parable of the Prodigal Son is related in Luke's and no other gospel. To many it is the outstanding parable of the New Testament. It tells the story of a younger son securing from his father his share of the inheritance inher-itance and the thoughtfulness and foolish waste of it. Finally, reduced to poverty and dire want, the son decides to return home, repentant, and seek the inferior place of a servant in his father's household. He was surprised by the loving welcome which his father gave him and . the generous treatment he re- ' ceived. Woodrow Wilson wrote an essay entitled, "When a Man Comes to Himself," probably basing his title on the phrase in the seventeenth verse, "It is a very wholesome and regenerating regener-ating change when a man comes to himself," he wrote, "It is not only after periods of recklessness reckless-ness of infatuation, when he has played the spendthrift of the fool, that a man comes to himself. him-self. He comes to himself after experiences of which he alone |