Teaching in Parables
7
of humanity had cast a pall over the fair face of creation; and instead
of manifesting God, His works became a barrier that concealed Him.
Men “worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator.” Thus
the heathen “became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart
was darkened.”
Romans 1:25, 21
. So in Israel, man’s teaching had
been put in the place of God’s. Not only the things of nature, but the
sacrificial service and the Scriptures themselves—all given to reveal
God—were so perverted that they became the means of concealing
Him.
Christ sought to remove that which obscured the truth. The veil that
sin has cast over the face of nature, He came to draw aside, bringing
[19]
to view the spiritual glory that all things were created to reflect. His
words placed the teachings of nature as well as of the Bible in a new
aspect, and made them a new revelation.
Jesus plucked the beautiful lily, and placed it in the hands of chil-
dren and youth; and as they looked into His own youthful face, fresh
with the sunlight of His Father’s countenance, He gave the lesson,
“Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow [in the simplicity of
natural beauty]; they toil not, neither do they spin; and yet I say unto
you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of
these.” Then followed the sweet assurance and the important lesson,
“Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and
tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall He not much more clothe you, O
ye of little faith?”
In the sermon on the mount these words were spoken to others
besides children and youth. They were spoken to the multitude, among
whom were men and women full of worries and perplexities, and sore
with disappointment and sorrow. Jesus continued: “Therefore take
no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or,
Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (for after all these things do the
Gentiles seek:) for your Heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need
of all these things.” Then spreading out His hands to the surrounding
multitude, He said, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His
righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”
Matthew
6:28-33
.
Thus Christ interpreted the message which He Himself had given
to the lilies and the grass of the field. He desires us to read it in every