15A20.     Isaiah 55:10-11.  “My word shall not return to me void, but shall do my will, achieving the end for which I sent it.”  Just before this last line, the Lord says that the rain and snow that he sends make the earth fertile and fruitful.  God sends down his grace or word, like a seed, to do the work for which he sends it, as he says, to “do my will, achieving the end for which I sent it.”

Matthew 23:1-23.  Jesus speaks in parables so they who are like the rich soil that produces fruit may produce even more fruit but the others who have not prepared themselves to be fruitful like the rich soil will hear words but not understand them.  In school, students are taught at the level for which they are prepared, first grade lessons are taught to first graders.  They are not given second grade lessons because those lessons are not suited to their level of learning.  The parables likewise are given to those who have prepared themselves to understand by living their life in Lord’s hands.  Those who have failed to live their past life by living their life in their own hands and not in the Lord’s hands have not prepared themselves to understand the parables.  It is as though they played hooky for those lessons.  Growing in the Lord is a day by day process of learning more and more from him daily throughout our life time.  That is the difference between living as a creature of God and living as a creature of this earth without God.  Living daily in God and with God and for God is an absolute requirement for entering heaven.  Jesus said in Matthew 7:13a, “Enter through the narrow gate,” and in Matthew 7:14, “How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life. And those who find it are few.”

Romans 8:18-23.  “For creation was subject to futility, not of its own accord but because of the one who subjected it, in hope that creation itself would be set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God.”  This earth and its material things must all one day rot and pass away.  This earth on its own is incapable of changing its destiny.  God can and wants to free us from the slavery to corruption which is that we will just disintegrate in the grave so that, instead, we can “share in the glorious freedom of the children of God.” That share is that we will one day partake in, with the One who loves us infinitely, an eternity of happiness in heaven.