THE PROPHETIC PARABLES OF MATTHEW 13

There is little room for wonder, though there is much for humiliation, at the widespread ignorance and error that now obtains among the people of God on many of the leading subjects of Prophecy. For almost fourteen centuries, as "Church-history" ) clearly shows, prophecy was neglected. Those known as the "Church fathers," with only one or two exceptions, like Origen, devoted their time to wrangling over doctrines and the ordinances; while prophecy was ignored. In view of  2  Peter  1:19__"We have also a more sure word of prophecy; where unto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place"__and general neglect of prophecy for fourteen hundred years, those centuries have very aptly been termed "The Dark Ages"__dark because the light from the lamp of prophecy did  not illumine them.

PT. 2 - Nor was it much better when the Reformers came on the scene. God forbid that we should utter one word of critcism against those honored men of God, but their hands were more than full in preaching the Gospel to a people who wereutterly ignorant of it, in translating the Scriptures ito their own mother-tongues, and in expounding the great fudamentals of the Christian faith. So  busily occupied where they in those good works, they had little or no time to give to the real study of prophecy itself. As a matter of fact, prtactically all that the Reormers saw in the prophetical portions of Scripture was the foretold judgment of God upon the Satanic system of the Paacy, out of which they had been mercifully delivered.  Those who have any knowledge at all of human nature can reaily understand how it would be with men who had been crdled in Romanism and who later had, by the grace of God, been enable to see its blasphemous errors. When they came to the prophecies of Scripture, their thinking was coloredby Romanism, and consequently when they met with an object which was the predicted subject of God's judgment, they viewed it through colored glasses. "Babylon" was the Papacy; the "Man of Sin" was the Pope; the "Beast" was Rome, and so on.

PT. 3 - The sad thing is that most of those who have followed the Reformers, instead of studying the prophecies of God's Word for themselves, have done little more than  echo what the Reformers before them said. In consequence, little or no advance has been made, and God's people at large today have very little more light upon prophecy than had their forefathers of three hundred years ago. There is, therefore, pressing need for all Christians to give at least part of the time they spend in reading the Scriptures to studying its predictions. We purpose giving a series of studies on the thirteenth chapter of Matthew, which, in the writer's judgment, is, from the stand-point of prophecy, the most important chapter of all the New Testament. There is much in God's prophetic program which must necessarily remain dark until the parables of this chapter are thoroughly mastered. At present they are much misunderstood and misinterpreted.