Isaiah 2:2-4 English Standard Version

2 It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord
shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be lifted up above the hills;
and all the nations shall flow to it,
3 and many peoples shall come, and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
4 He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide disputes for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.

These are not the latter days, as much as I would like them to be, they are not. How do I know that? The King of kings has not come and made His place on earth to settle all our disputes.

Verse 3 says many will come to receive instruction. That hasn’t happened even if we who walk with the Lord count our numbers as many. We need not now ask of His ways because He is our Lord seated on the throne of heaven, not on Zion.

Our paths do not lead us to the King of kings, we walk the earth according to His will and His way.

Proverbs 8:20

I walk in the way of righteousness, in the paths of justice,

Micah 4:2 repeats the message of Isaiah but adds in verse 5 “For all the peoples walk each in the name of its god, but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and ever.”

Our  path is in the here and now, not our forever future.

Is the path we walk just?

It will be if we walk in the way of righteousness.

Matthew 13

The Parable of the Sower

1 That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. 2 And great crowds gathered about him, so that he got into a boat and sat down. And the whole crowd stood on the beach. 3 And he told them many things in parables, saying: “A sower went out to sow. 4 And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them. 5 Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, 6 but when the sun rose they were scorched. And since they had no root, they withered away. 7 Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. 8 Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. 

9 He who has ears, let him hear.”

What do we hear? Sowing the gospel is non-discriminatory. It is to be sown everywhere.

Before we go on towards how the seed is sown, allow me to say that the sower was walking on a path. Some seed fell at his feet. He did not pick those up to be cast again to the side of the path.

Matthew 10:5

Jesus Sends Out the Twelve Apostles

These twelve Jesus sent out, instructing them, “Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans,

How do we reconcile the parable with Matthew 10:5 in excluding Gentiles and Samaritans?

6 but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 7 And proclaim as you go, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’

Jesus set them upon a path that had a purpose where some were looking for the coming of their Messiah. The direction of that path was chosen because He was the Messiah and He had come to them with purpose.

What is not said in the parable of the sower was this; who chose for him the path to walk?

What path we are set out to walk determines where the seed is cast without discrimination.

Now comes the hard part. What path do we walk?