He Taught Them Many Parables… (The Parable Of The Weather Signs) # 7

Weather is defined as the state of the atmosphere at a given time and place, with respect to variables such as temperature, moisture, wind velocity, and barometric pressure.

There are a wide variety of technological instruments and observing systems that measure weather. These include:

• ANEMOMETERS for measuring the velocity of wind

• BAROMETERS for measuring pressure

• SCINTILLOMETERS which measure temperature gradients

• THERMOMETERS which measure temperature

• RAIN GAUGES which measure precipitation

People have always been interested in the weather, because the weather plays such a big part in our daily lives.

Today, in the age in which we live, meteorologists with the modern equipment can safely predict the weather from day to day, and many times forecast the weather five days in advance.

This is helpful as we make our plans for those important things that we want to do throughout the day.

Humor: We do not have to depend on the aches and pains in Uncle Henry’s right knee joint anymore, we have more sophisticated ways of telling what the weather is going to do.

Humor: Of course, one of the best ways to get rain is to wash your car, it will almost certainly rain.

The people who lived when the Lord was here on earth were as dependent on the weather as we are today.

Because the weather was something they were familiar with, He chose to use the weather as a teaching tool to teach them about the signs of His coming.

There are two things in this life we will never know the answer too:

• We do not know the day and the hour we are going to die

• We do not know the day and the hour the Lord will return for His church

The reason we do not know either one of these is obvious. If people knew the answer to these two things, they would live their life in sin, and in their last few hours they would turn to the Lord.

These are two things we will never know, but the Bible teaches there are signs of His coming that we can look at, and we can know that it won’t be long.

This is why He gave them the PARABLE OF THE WEATHER. We can look at certain conditions and know if rain is coming or not.

In Luke 12:54-55, we read, “And he said also to the people, When ye see a cloud rise out of the west, straightway ye say, There cometh a shower; and so it is. And when ye see the south wind blow, ye say, There will be heat; and it cometh to pass.”

HOW GOOD ARE YOU AT READING SIGNS? There are some signs that are a good indication that it will not be long before Christ returns for His church.

Let’s look at some of the signs, but before we do we need to consider the -

I. SIGN SEEKERS

The people in Jesus’ day, like many today, did not believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah. They were always wanting Him to show them a “Sign” to prove He was who He said He was. It was not because they were dumb, it was simply because they did not want to believe.

In this parable, you can see the Lord’s displeasure with them. Look at verses 56-57, we read, “Ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky and of the earth; but how is it that ye do not discern this time? Yea, and why even of yourselves judge ye not what is right?”

The Lord referred to them as “Hypocrites”.

These are SIGN SEEKERS. No one, including the Lord, is going to convince them to be Believers. If the Lord had given them ONE SIGN, they would have demanded a BIGGER SIGN!

They are practical atheists. There is not that much difference between them and an atheist.

Illus: A man called in to Sean Hannity’s radio talk show on June 24th, 2002.

Sean asked him, “Do you believe in God?” He said, “No!” He stated that he was an atheist.

Sean, then proceeded to ask him how all these things we can see with our eyes came into existence?

The man said that it all came about through the process of evolution.

Sean then asked him where evolution came from. The man said, “From the molecules.”

Then Sean asked him where the molecules came from?

The man said, “From the Big Bang Theory!”

The man was getting exasperated with Sean because he began to feel like a fool, believing the way he did.

Finally, Sean explained to him that if he would trace the whole evolutionary process backwards, he would eventually have to conclude that SOMETHING CAME FROM NOTHING, and he said, “Only God can create something from nothing!”