The Parable Of The Leaven

Luke 13:20-21

Theme: The Need for Repentance

Key Verse: vs.3, 5

35 verses; 864 words

Grade Level: 5.9

Outline:

I. Explanation. vs.1-5

II. Examination. vs.6-10

III. Executive. vs.11-17

IV. Equivalent. vs.18-21

V. vs.24-30

VI. vs.31-35

In The Parable of the Barren Fig Tree, there is opposition to the Divine Work.

In The Parable of the Mustard Seed, there is abortion of the Divine Way.

In The Parable of the Leaven and Meal, there is corruption of the Divine Warning.

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The Lord gives His disciples personal instruction about the dangers of holding on to small sins.

The Lord’s message of that day is the same as His Person: the same yesterday, today, and forever.

We discuss in this message LIABILITIES of leaven.

Liability - The state of being bound or obliged in law or justice

I. The Definition of Leaven.

It’s 1st mention

Exodus 12:15 “Seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread; even the first day ye shall put away leaven out of your houses: for whosoever eateth leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel.”

Has to do with something to be put out before work from the Lord can be carried out.

Has to do with something that can get you put out from before the Lord.

Leaven was not allowed together with the blood of God’s sacrifice.

Exodus 34:25 “Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven; neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the passover be left unto the morning.”

Leaven was not allowed in the Lord’s offering.

Leviticus 2:11 “No meat offering, which ye shall bring unto the LORD, shall be made with leaven: for ye shall burn no leaven, nor any honey, in any offering of the LORD made by fire.”

II. The Depiction of Leaven.

Leaven is a type of sin.

Matthew 16:11 “How is it that ye do not understand that I spake it not to you concerning bread, that ye should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees?”

“beware”

1 Corinthians 5:6–8 (KJV)

5 Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?

6 Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:

7 Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

“purge”

The first time that leaven in its negative form, occurs in the Bible is in Genesis 19:3 where we are told that Lot “did bake unleavened bread” for the angels and that “they did eat,” which shows most plainly that leaven, a common commodity, was the appropriate food for doomed, wicked Sodom.

Sin and leaven both promote growth.

“Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.” (Edward Abbey)

III. The Destruction of Leaven.

The parable of leaven contrasts true doctrine with the false doctrine sown by a corrupt church in an unconverted world (v.21).

Luke 13:21 “It is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.”

It starts of hidden.

It starts of small.

It spreads when you are not watching.

The word “leaven” occurs 13 times in the New Testament.

Conclusion:

The leaven of the Pharisees was hypocritical formality, or religiousness, a blinding externalism in religion, and it is so today in the church’s legalism.

Rebellion against The Lord’s Work on the Cross.

The leaven of the Sadducees, skepticism, or rationalism, is a denial of the supernatural, so common today among evolutionists.

Rebellion against The Lord’s Work on the Creation.

The leaven of Herod was that of a debasing sensualism, the fruit of the two former. Departure from God and His Word results in secularism and indulgence in worldly lusts, the calamity of this hour. Herod’s leaven consisted in power and greatness based upon the possession of material things. Is this not the sin of nations and men today?

Rebellion against The Lord’s Work on the Christian.

Galatians 5:9

A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.