The Spread and Influence of the Kingdom

Bill Woody

The Kingdom of God • Sermon • Submitted 4 years ago

Matthew 13:31–35

The Kingdom of God

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The Spread and Influence of the Kingdom

Text: Matthew 13:31–35 (KJV 1900)

31 Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field: 32 Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.

33 Another parable spake he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.

34 All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude in parables; and without a parable spake he not unto them: 35 That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world.

Introduction:

* This morning we are looking at the third and fourth of the Kingdom parables as preached by our Lord Jesus.

* On the first Sunday in this series of sermons on the Kingdom parables, we looked at the Parable of the Sower, which is the key to understanding all of the rest of the Kingdom Parables.

* We learned from the parable of the sower that the Kingdom Parables are about the “seed” that Jesus came to sow in the world.

Matthew 13:36–38 (KJV 1900)

36 Then Jesus sent the multitude away, and went into the house: and his disciples came unto him, saying, Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field. 37 He answered and said unto them,

He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man; 38 The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one;

* The seed that Jesus sowed in the world was the Word of God.

* The remainder of the Kingdom parables, are about what will happen to the “seed”, the Word of God, that Jesus sowed in the world.

* The parables of the Kingdom are an amazingly accurate series of prophecies given by our Lord Jesus about what will happen to the Word of God between the time that Jesus first spoke the World of God into the world, until it’s final rejection in the last days.

* These prophecies go hand in hand with the prophetic meaning of the letters to the churches in the first three chapters of the book of Revelation.

* By the time of the Last days, we find the Letter to the church at Laodicea is written to a church that is apostate.

* This church is representative of the state of the Word of God in the Last Days.

* It has turned away from the truth of the Word of God, so much so that Jesus says He is standing outside the church seeking someone to hear the Word of God.

Revelation 3:16–20 (KJV 1900)

16 So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.

17 Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: 18 I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see. 19 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.

20 Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.

* In Luke 18:8, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself asked the question, “… when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?”

* The way the question is asked in the original Greek language, it demands a negative answer. –No, Jesus will not find faith in the world when He comes back!

* In other words, he is saying that when He does return the world, and the church, will be in total apostasy.

* The apostle Paul, writing to a young man studying for the ministry, warns that the time will come when people will not endure sound doctrine:

2 Timothy 4:2–4 (KJV 1900)

2 Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.

3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; 4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.

* The final, and total apostasy of the church is revealed in the church of Laodicea. (see Rev. 3:14–19).

* In the second parable of the Kingdom, we looked at the parable of the Wheat and the Tares. The meaning of this parable was that Jesus had come and sowed “good seed,” the Word of God, but the evil one, the devil, came and sowed bad seed in the midst of the good seed.

* As a result of false teaching and corrupting the World of God, Jesus prophesied that the Kingdom will become full of “true believers,” who live and grow along side of the “false believers.”

Matthew 13:27–30 (KJV 1900)

27 So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares? 28 He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?

29 But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.

* The false believers, according to the apostle Paul, will have a form of Godliness, but are not true believers, and they will be mixed in with the Church.

2 Timothy 3:1–7 (KJV 1900)

This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.

2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3 Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, 4 Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;

5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.

6 For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts,

7 Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

* These false believers have churches, and preachers, and singers, and claim to have the Holy Spirit and do miracles in the name of Jesus, but they have never been regenerated by the power of God unto salvation.

* These false believers have joined up with the true believers claiming the name of Jesus, but they have never come to Jesus repenting of their sin, and placing their faith totally in the blood of the cross for the forgiveness of sins.

- Like the Catholic church teaches, they trust in Jesus plus their own good works.

- Like the cults that claim to preach and teach the Bible such as the Mormons, they have added to the World of God, and according to Revelation, they have forfeited their salvation.

Revelation 22:18–19 (KJV 1900)

18 For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: 19 And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy,

God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.

* These false believers are the ones to which Jesus says on Judgment day “depart from me, for I never knew you!”

* Turn with me now to Matthew chapter 7 and verse 21. Jesus said:

Matthew 7:21–27 (KJV 1900)

21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? 23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

* The very next words of Jesus in Matthew 7 was a story about a wise man who built his religious house upon the rock of the truth of the Word of God, and a foolish man who built his religious house upon the false teaching of the religions of this world.

* In the end, the foolish man who turns away from the truth of the Bible for the “corrupted seed” of those who have corrupted the Word of God, will find that he has built his religion on a house of cards that will come tumbling down upon his head.

* Jesus said to that religions crowd He was talking to nn Matthew 7:24:

24 Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:

25 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. 26 And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand:

27 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.

Body:

* Now that we have our bearings and focus, let’s look at the meaning of the next two Kingdom Parables that Jesus taught. Parables 3 and 4:

* The first of these parables is the “Parable of the Mustard Seed.”, and the second is the “Parable of the leaven.”

* These parables we will group together because they are related to one another.

* These parables are about the spread and influence of the “seed” that Jesus came to sow into the world.

* Let’s look at the Meaning of the first one “The parable of the Mustard Seed.”

* In this parable Jesus reveals the outward growth of Christendom.

* The church has not converted the world, but it has had a tremendous influence on the world.

* Any place that Christianity has gone can be called Christendom.

* You say what do you mean by Christendom? This is what Jesus referred to when He spoke of the “Kingdom of God.”

* What we call Christendom is the sum of all those who name the name of Jesus, who are true believers, and all those who have a form of worldly religion, but deny the truth- the seed that Jesus came to sow in the field of the world.

* All these mixed together, the good seed and the bad seed, (you remember the parable of the wheat and the tares), make up the Kingdom that Jesus is prophesying about.

* The Kingdom of God in the Kingdom parables is not the Church, but the Church and the world together- the wheat and the tares.

* This parable of the Mustard Seed, reveals the outward growth of the organized church.

* The “Parable of the Mustard Seed,” is Jesus prediction that the Kingdom that the seed, the Word of god, produces will begin very small, like that of a tiny mustard seed, but as time goes on it will put out branches and grow to be very large.

* In the days of the early disciples of Jesus the World of God spoken by Jesus was small.

* After all the healing, miracles, teaching and preaching that Jesus did, there were only 120 people who were gathered in the upper room waiting for the promise of the Holy Spirit that would come.

* But, even on the very day that the Holy Spirit did come, that very day, according to the book of Acts, there were over 3,0000 people saved on that one day alone.

* In the “Parable of the Mustard Seed,” Jesus prophesied that the seed of the World of God would grow until it filled all the earth!

* Now I want you to see something here. Jesus also said that the great plant that the World of God would grow into will also be the home of birds.

* Now, in each of the Parables of the Kingdom, we need to use the same meanings for symbols as Jesus did in the Parable of the Sower.

* In the Parable of the Sower, Jesus said that the birds represented evil that takes away the seed that Jesus sowed in the world.

* The birds that lodge in the branches of the Kingdom produced by the sowing of the Word of God represent the false religions, and false doctrines that will arise and nest where the Word of God is preached in the world.

* These birds represent the false teaching of the Catholic church that would come soon after Jesus ascends to heaven.

* These birds represent the cults in the world that pervert the Word of God and lead people away from the world of God that Jesus sowed in the world.

* False cults like:

- The Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society

- The Christian Science cult

- The Church of the Latter Day Saints- or Mormon church

- The cults of Spiritisim and Satan Worship

- The cult of The Theosophical Society (Modern Gnosticism)

- The cults of Buddhism, Zen

- The cult of the Baha’i faith

- The cult of Universalism which includes Joel Olsten and all those who

Teach that people of all religions and faiths lead to salvation.

- The cult of Unitarianism and the Unitarian church

- The cult of Scientology

- The cult of the Unification church

- The cults of the Eastern religions of the Orient

- The cults of the New Age Movement

- The cult of Muslims- Islam

* Now let’s take a look at the fourth parable, the “Parable of the leaven.”

33 Another parable spake he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.

* The three measures of meal represent the World of God. Meal is the fruit of wheat- the wheat represented the seed that Jesus came to sow in the field of the world in the first parable, which is the key to this one.

* Note what happens to the Word of God represented by the meal. A woman comes along She takes the leaven and hides it in the meal.

* Obviously, the leaven is a principle of evil, and the woman puts it in the meal, which represents the gospel, the Word of God.

* Now, what does leaven do?

* Leaven is a substance, such as yeast, used to produce fermentation.

* When it is put in bread dough, (mixed with the wheat), because of its fermenting effect, causes the wheat it to rise. It corrupts the wheat from the inside.

* In the modern day in which we live, the church and the world have become horribly mixed up with the world.

* There has been integration, a mixing if you will, by the devil, between people in the church and people in the world.

* Church people, and worldly people. live and act very much alike in the day in which we live.

* Now something about the effect of leaven is worth noting at this point.

* Not only does leaven make bread rise, but it makes bread tasty, too.

That is the reason a great many people find a thrill in some of the cults and false teaching of the day in which we live.

* Unleavened bread is just blah as far as the natural taste is concerned.

* In the day in which we live people have become tired of the plain, unleavened truth of the Word of God.

* They don’t want to hear that plain old dry teaching of Bible doctrine; they want to hear something fun and exciting!

* We live in a day when folks tell us that in order to reach the world, we need to be more like the world in our churches.

* They tell us that we need to have Christian rock music to reach today’s teenagers and get them to come to church.

* They tell us that we need to stop talking and singing about the blood.

* They have re-written all of our hymnals and taken out the old songs about the blood of Jesus and replaced them with feel good little choruses, and little ditties that repeat Jesus over and over, but mean absolutely nothing!

* They tell us that we need to stop preaching about the judgment of God against sin, and just try to get along with everybody.

* The parable of the Mustard Seed represented an outward growth of Christendom, but this parable, the parable of the leaven, speaks of the internal condition of Christendom.

* The birds that nested in the Mustard tree represent the obvious false cults of our day.

* Now in this second parable about the growth and influence of the Word of God in the world, The leaven, that was hidden in the three measure of meal, represent the false teaching that has infiltrated the churches of our day.

* The church in the day in which we live is suffering from the fermenting effect of false teaching.

* Like the church of Laodicea the churches have become rich and bloated with false doctrine.

- Legalisim

- Baptismal regeneration

- Hyper- Calvinism

- Armenianism

- Celibacy

- Charismatic fallacies

- Confessionals

- Ecumenicalism

- Health, Wealth and prosperity Gospel-

- Name it and claim it – Word of Faith movement- Kenneth Copeland

- Infant Baptism, baptism for the dead

- Lifestyle evangelism

- Lordship Salvation

- Religious Liberalisim

* The churches of our day abandoned the origin seed that Jesus sowed in the world the Word of God, and turned aside to lies and fairy tales.

1 Timothy 1:3–7 (KJV 1900)

3 As I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus, when I went into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine, 4 Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith: so do. 5 Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned:

6 From which some having swerved have turned aside unto vain jangling; 7 Desiring to be teachers of the law; understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm.

2 Timothy 4:2–4 (KJV 1900)

2 Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.

Jude 3–4 (KJV 1900)

3 Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. 4 For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ….

16 These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men’s persons in admiration because of advantage.

17 But, beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ; 18 how that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts. 19 These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit.

* When a woman makes biscuits or bread, she will add a little yeast or leaven to make the bread rise. When the bread has risen just enough, she puts it in the oven the stop the fermenting process.

* Have you ever seen what yeast continues to do to the bread if you don’t stop the fermenting process? It just turns the whole thing into a huge muck mess fit for nothing!

* And as Jesus taught in this parable of the leaven, so it will happen to the church.

* This parable of the leaven, teaches that the intrusion of wrong doctrine into the church will finally lead to total apostasy

* The leaven Satan has hidden within the church will finally corrupt the institute of the earthly church, or what we call Christendom.

* What’s left of the church on the earth, right before Jesus appears in the heavens, with the trump of God, and the voice a the archangel, to take the church to heaven in the rapture, will be a corrupted stinking mess.

* It was such a mess that Jesus said that He wanted to “spit them out,” or spew the out of his mouth.

Revelation 3:14–18 (KJV 1900)

14 And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God;

15 I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. 16 So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.

* When Jesus comes in the last days He said that He would barely find true faith in the earth. This was the state of the church of Laodicea in Revelation chapter 3, which represents the days of the apostate church.

Conclusion:

* As we consider these two parables this morning, what truth do we take away from our study of these parables?

* Remember, these parables are a picture of what happens to the Word of God on this earth.

* As a Christian, what is your relationship to the Word of God this morning?

* Do you know enough about the Bible to keep from falling for false teaching?

* How much do you read the Bible? How do you even know that you are hearing the truth at church?

* God will hold you accountable for what you have done with the World of God, the Bible.

* Would you be one of the members of the First Baptist Church of Laodicea?

* Would you sit back and enjoy the contemporary music, listen to the feel-good sermons of the Joel Olsen kind of false prophet, go on trips with the senior citizens, and die feeling good about yourself only to stand before God to hear:

“Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels”

* To the person who has made no commitment to believe in Jesus:

* What have you done with the Word of God? Jesus came to sow the seed of the Gospel in your heart- What have you done with that seed?

* Have you obeyed the Gospel, the seed, the Word of God?

* You say Brother Bill, how do I obey the Gospel? Jesus and John the Baptist said “repent of our your sin and believe in the name of Jesus for the remission, or forgiveness of sin.

Acts 4:12 (KJV 1900)

12 Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.

* Jesus said: John 12:46–48 (KJV 1900)

46 I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness. 47 And if any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.

48 He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.

* To the person who had never made a conscious decision to obey the Word of God, the World of God will judge you in the last day.