There’s something else too to be learned from these words. In the preceding verse, the last portion of the verse, ‘Lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them’: that is the point of the parables. There is salvation and grace in all the parables. Christ speaks of his parables and he says that they are given to convey and to partially obscure what? – the message of conversion and forgiveness. That is what they are about. We have then the principal that there is grace in all parables. Oh, but are not some of them purely moral in their teaching? You often hear it said that the parable of the Good Samaritan is about the person who helps another in distress; it has an ethical message and that is all. No, because all the parables are also to do with forgiveness and conversion. Those are the words of Christ. If you understand this one, you will understand them all. The disciples are asked, ‘Know ye not this parable?’, and the question implies that they should know it. They are within the kingdom of heaven, and therefore see things from the perspective of the kingdom of heaven. These parables of the kingdom ought to be accessible to them, for they have first hand experience of the kingdom being described by the parables. So we learn that there is a salvation message, a message of grace, an illustration of the way of conversion and forgiveness, in all the parables. They are illustrations and they have been used in that way by preachers down the centuries.
But the parables of Christ also accomplish something else. They all have a kind of slow fuse attached to them. They are designed to be understood most of all after the death of Christ, his crucifixion, his resurrection, then daylight shines on the parables particularly. They are designed to have this delayed effect to some extent and throughout the Christian age we have been teaching them and applying them, and use them to make clear the terms of the gospel, the way of salvation, though in some cases that may not have been terribly evident before the work of Christ in atoning for sinners and all that he has done. The parable of the Good Samaritan, for example, does not appear to be particularly gracious, before you understand about Christ and what he did for souls and that he was the Good Samaritan. The same happens today. The essential framework of the parable may be retained, but the understanding of it is delayed until the Spirit gives light. Like the seed itself, it is stored in the mind and comes to germination later.