Christ gave His disciples to understand that He preached in parables and hid the great truths He presented under similitudes that persons who have not the truth or the love of it, whose hearts are misled by their own tempers and gratified inclinations, could not know of His doctrines....
The unfruitful hearers are specified by our Lord as the skeptical, the superficial, or the secular. These cannot discern the moral glory of the truth or its practical personal application to their own hearts. They lack that faith which overcomes the world, and as the sure consequence the world overcomes them....
It is the close connection with God which opens and makes quick and sharp the understanding. Men in Christ’s day brought upon themselves that blindness that in seeing they see not and the willful deafness that in hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. Jesus told them that there was no reason for them to be surprised at what He had stated in regard to their unbelief, for Isaiah had predicted the same [Matthew 13:13-15 quoted]....
Some of the people professing to believe the truth for this time will be in a similar position. They will not understand the marvelous work of God by which God confirms His Word. They will not perceive that the working of God’s Spirit is wrought by His power, not because the evidence is not sufficient, but because the waywardness and the corruption of their own hearts will not suffer them honestly and candidly to weigh these evidences for the sins of the people have hardened their hearts and their conformity to the world has clouded their conceptions of divine things.... They are unwilling to be directed in the path of righteousness which would lead to the city of God....
Our trust must be wholly in God. He will be to us a present help in every time of need. Let us wait upon the Lord and exercise faith in His promises. He will hear us. Only believe. The Captain of our salvation will not leave us to guide our own bark. We shall have His help and His wisdom just when He sees we need it.—Letter 24, December 18, 1882,, to W. C. White. TDG 361
People put soul and earnestness into everything they undertake in temporal things, until their efforts are crowned with success. With intense earnestness learn the trade of seeking the rich blessings that God has promised, and with persevering, determined effort you shall have His light and His truth and His rich grace. Pr 114
And the disciples came and said to Him, “Why do You speak to them in parables?” He answered and said to them, “Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. Matthew 13:10-11 (New King James Version)