The Grain of Mustard Seed and Hidden Leaven Part II

As we once again begin to look into this chapter, studying the parables of Jesus Christ. We would do well to note the setting of these seven kingdom parables given to us.

In verse number one of Matthew 13, we find these words, “The same day went Jesus out of the house, and sat by the sea side.”

Those words ‘the same day’ certainly link us back to chapter 12 and we find that the Lord had already had a full day of ministering to others.

In chapter 12 verses 1-8 the Lord declares to the Pharisees that He is Lord of the Sabbath. In this He is expressing His deity as being the owner of the Sabbath and the He alone has a right to direct the manner of the observance of it.

In verses 9-14 He begins to teach the religionists who had accused His disciples earlier of unlawful actions on the Sabbath by healing a man with a withered hand and He states in verses 12, “Wherefore it is lawful to do well on the sabbath days.”

And starting in verses 13 down through the final verses of chapter 12 the Lord Jesus Christ is found to be healing many with sicknesses and cast out a devil from one that is blind and dumb.

It is at this juncture that they begin to accuse Him of being in league with Satan Himself. His rebuttal is one that is marked by such expressions as ,

(vs 25) “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation”

(vs 33) “Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit.”

These religious rulers then compel the Savior to give them a sign, and Lord points out that only, (v39) “An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas:”

Chapter 12 closes as the Lord begins to speak about the family of God as opposed to those who are part of our fleshly family...

And so it is in this same day that the Lord begins to speak of these parables given to us in Matthew 13.

With that being understood, lets begin reading again in verse number 31.

Read verses 31-33

Remember last week we began to look at these parables. And I told this that they are coupled together and related one to another.

The first of these two parables is the parable of the Mustard seed.

And in that first parable we saw four major points:

I. A Mustard Seed Sown in the World

By this we understood that the Lord is accomplishing His work still in this world today. Therefore our place of service to the King is right here.

II. A Small Beginning Among Seeds

It was here that we recounted the small humble beginnings of Christianity. We looked at the Lord’s ministry and discovered that it was characterized with lowliness and meekness.

III. The Growth of the Mustard Seed

And we can certainly see that the Lord is still in the saving business. The Gospel certainly spread unto the uttermost parts of the earth. And yet today the Lord is still saving Souls.

IV. The Abnormal Growth of the Mustard Tree

And this sad truth was that all that is said to be ‘Christian’ is not ‘Christian’.

Further everyone who identifies themselves as Christian are not born-again Christians.

And so what were we to do?

I gave you three points:

Make sure you are a Christian

Make sure you know the Word of God

Make sure you listen to the Holy Spirit

This brings us to verse 33 where we find this second parable:

Notice what it says, “The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.”

We immediately have 3 questions that should come to mind.

Who is this woman?

What is this meal that is spoken about?

What is the significance of the Leaven?

Again, remember that unlike the parable of the Sower and the parable of the Tares of the Field the Lord Jesus Christ did not give us an exposition of this parable.

That simply tells us two things:

We must determine the meaning by the illuminating of the Holy Spirit of God.

“Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.” John 16:13

“But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.” I John 2:27

(John 16:13, I John 2:27)

We must determine the meaning by comparing Scripture with Scripture.

(Romans 10:17)

So, lets take each one these subjects and look at them.

I. The Three Measures of Meal

We begin by looking at the meal. To do so we will be looking at the first occurence of the phrase “three measures of meal.”

This is found in Genesis 18.

Let’s read that passage together:

“1 And the LORD appeared unto him in the plains of Mamre:”

Before we go any further we need to understand that the him that is spoken of is Abraham.

Abram was called of God, he was the one the Lord had made some exceeding precious promises to in Genesis 12. One of these promises in particular was that from Abram seed “ all families of the earth be blessed”

We understand by this looking back that the Lord Jesus Christ came from the lineage of Abraham. We understand that Abraham was the father of faith, trusting God, following God.

“1 And the LORD appeared unto him in the plains of Mamre: and he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day; 2 And he lift up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men stood by him: and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself toward the ground, 3 And said, My Lord, if now I have found favour in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant: 4 Let a little water, I pray you, be fetched, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree: 5 And I will fetch a morsel of bread, and comfort ye your hearts; after that ye shall pass on: for therefore are ye come to your servant. And they said, So do, as thou hast said. 6 And Abraham hastened into the tent unto Sarah, and said, Make ready quickly three measures of fine meal, knead it, and make cakes upon the hearth.”

Sarah made these three measures of meal. Once the meal was prepared according to verse number 8 there was fellowship or communion that ensued between Abraham and the pre-incarnate Christ.

Remember how the passage goes that during this time

The Lord announced the birth of Abrahams only son Isaac. (vs 10-14)

It was during this time that the Lord chose to tell Abraham of the impending destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. (vs 17-21)

It was during this fellowship that Abraham interceding in Christlike fashion for His nephew Lot. (vs 22-33)

And so we can see this three measures of meal in this first occurence indicates:

A. Our Fellowship with the Lord

The meal prepared for these heavenly guests represents our fellowship with God.

But then secondly,

B. Our Lord’s Purity and Life

It is interesting to note as well that the usual amount for the meal offering required under the Mosaic law was three measures or one ephah.

And that this meal offering was made of fine flour which typically symbolized the Lord Jesus Christ in His purity and His life.

As one Bible scholar put it, “the fine flour of the meal offering prefigured the matchless life of the Lord Jesus.”

This meal offering that is found in Leviticus chapter 2 was of

1. Fine flour (2:1)

2. Mixed with an unmeasured amount of oil (speaking about the Holy Spirit of God) (2:1)

3. No honey or leaven allowed (2:11) which speaks of the natural sweetness of our perfect Savior and nothing corrupting added.

Our Fellowship with the Lord, Our Lord’s Purity and Life.

When we put these together we see that bread stands for fellowship.

Our communion with God is shown here in Genesis 18 but also Judges 6:19.

But then when we come to the New Testament we see that our Lord and Savior is the Bread of Life. This shows us God’s communion with us.

With this we come to understand the meal represents, our fellowship with God.

But what about the woman and the leaven?

As we continue to understand this parable everything is really determined by identifying the leaven. And as we will look at the ‘leaven’ in our last point the Scriptures identify what the leaven is and it is not in a positive light.

But now we come to the woman.

II. The Woman

(vs 33)“The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.”

I want you to see first of all that her actions are:

A. Secret and Deceitful

If we are to identify the meal with our fellowship with the Lord and connect this mention of the three measures with Old Testament offering, the Jewish person that listened as the Lord Jesus Christ taught this parable would be aghast at the thought of ‘hiding leaven’ in this sacred offering.

Here this women is said to secretly hide leaven.

The word translated as ‘hid’ here is the Greek word enkrypto, which means to hide or conceal. It also where we get the modern day term of encrypted…or maybe it would help to think of cryptography or crypto-currency.

It gives the ideal of conceal something so that it may not be discovered. It certainly has a secret and deceitful connotation.

Not only are her actions secret and deceitful, but her actions are:

B. Subversive and Destroying

Notice in our text the result of what this woman does, this leaven affects the entire three measures of meal. It permeates, it spreads and the results are the whole is leavened.

This action if it is in secret, and if it is deceitful is most certainly subversive and destroying.

Paul speaks about the destroying and corrupting work of leaven in I Corinthians 5:6,7 , “Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? 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:”

Paul’s sharp rebuke to the Corinthians had to do with them allowing fornication to take place openly among God’s people. And the people with almost pious attitude were glorying about their grace concerning the sinful actions.

As we continue to identify this woman, There are many Bible teachers that believe these seven parables, these kingdom parables could perhaps correspond to the seven churches found in the book of the revelation of Jesus Christ. And if that is in fact the case, the fourth church, the church of Thyatira would correspond with this fourth parable and speaks of the deceitful work of Jezebel infiltrating amongst the people of God. (Revelation 2:19-23)

Jezebel in the Old Testament was the wife of King Ahab, perhaps one of the most wicked kings for the northern tribes of Israel. He certainly is the one of the most well-known for his wickedness. Jezebel, his wife, was known for polluting and corrupting the true worship of God to the nation of Israel by introducing a multitude of false worship practices and false prophets and priests into their lives.

She influenced Ahab to act more wickedly and encouraged his wholesale apostasy from Jehovah God. Remember the actions Jezebel took concerning Naboth’s vineyard in I Kings 21.

We find further that in the same book penned by John, in the Revelation of Jesus Christ the once again we find a woman called the “Mother of Harlots” representing the false religious state of the Antichrist in Revelation chapter 17.

You might at this point be saying, Pastor James surely you are jumping to some conclusions about this whole thing.

Let me remind of the abnormal growth of the mustard tree, and let us now look at the third point and identify what the leaven is.

III. The Leaven

The word ‘leaven’ is used specifically both in the Old Testament and the New Testament.

In Leviticus chapter 2:11 for instance, we find this statement

“No meat offering,  which ye shall bring  unto the LORD, shall be made  with leaven:”

Prior to this leaven was connected with the departing of the nation of Israel from Egypt.

In Exodus 12:34 the people left Egypt with unleavened dough, because they left in such haste and they were thrust out of the “sin-cursed” kingdom.

Households covered by the blood of the lamb, exited Egypt the same night the Lord smote all the firstborn in Egypt.

The LORD then commanded in that same chapter, Exodus chapter 12 that they would observe by ordinance the feast of Unleavened bread, to remember how it is that God saved them by the blood of the Lamb, the passing over, being covered by the blood.

Leaven for the Jew was a symbol of evil and sin. It represented Egypt.

In the New Testament the Bible speaks about ‘leaven’ 17 times.

Sixteen of those occurences there is absolutely no question that “leaven” is a symbol of evil or evil influence.

Two of those occurences in I Corinthians are put in direct contrast with the word “Unleavened.”

And even more shocking is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, just three chapters later here in the book of Matthew and just one chapter later in the book of Luke in proximity to this parable uses the word ‘leaven’ to indicate evil or evil influences.

I said earlier that 16 of these 17 instances are specifically and explicitly used to denote evil; this would be counted as the 17th occurrence if all the others are looked at first.

And I believe that you and I can come to some point of application, now putting the entire picture together of the apostatizing of Christianity and can heed the warning that we find in the Scriptures concerning this matter of leaven and the leavening of the lump.

The Lord Jesus Christ Himself gives us three specific dangers, categorizing them as leaven. Each times he mentions these with the admonishment, “Beware”

The first of these is:

A. The Leaven of the Pharisees

In Matthew 16:6 concerning this leaven we find the Bible says, “Then Jesus said unto them, Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees...”

The leaven of the Pharisees is explained specifically by the Lord Himself, in Luke chapter 12:1. He states, Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.”

This leavening agent is a great danger to you and I today.

A hypocrite is one who is an actor. A hypocrite is not an Atheist. An atheist is one who says there is no such thing as God. They do not attempt to pull any deception about what they believe.

A hypocrite on the other hand is one that pretends to be what they are not. They are acting or playing a part.

And before we begin to say, not me… let us ask the Holy Spirit of God to reveal to us how we truly are and does that line up with what we are showing to everyone else.

The Bible tells us that one way for us to discern the truth about ourselves is by looking into the powerful Word of God.

James 1:22,23 “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass:”

The Word of God reveals our ‘natural’ face to us.

So we have not only the leaven of the Pharisees which is hypocrisy, but the the Lord warned about another leaven:

B. The Leaven of the Sadducees

Not only did the Lord Jesus Christ warn of the leaven of the Pharisees, but in the same verse Jesus mentions the leaven of the Sadducees.

You might ask, well aren’t the Pharisees and the Sadducees the same? And the answer is no. They were two vastly differently groups within the Jewish culture.

The Pharisees were very religious folks. The Sadducees were rather liberal. They laid aside the teachings of the Word of God for the sake of unity.

The Sadducees denied that there was any future state after death. The denied the existence of a soul after physical death. They denied the existence of angels and spirits altogether. This is found in Matthew 22 and also in Acts chapter 23 notwithstanding the attestation of the early Jewish fathers.

This leaven has everything to do with compromising the doctrine taught in the Bible. Ironically, the Sadducees were reported to believe only in the written law and shunned the practices of the oral law as outlined by the Pharisees. But in Matthew chapter 22 we see clearly they did not believe the Scriptures.

Today doctrinal compromise is rampant. Local churches choose which part of God’s Word they will follow and which parts they will not. Justification is made for disobedience by declaring that God’s Word is not up to date or relevant to this culture. Clear testimony in the Word of God is changed to appeal to the masses.

The Bible tells us that many will seek out after teachers that will be willing to compromise the truth, so that they can feel good about transgressing the Word of God.

The Bible says in II Timothy 4:3, “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;”

This permeating leaven again the Lord Jesus Christ says “Beware!”

Not only do we have the leaven of the Pharisees; hypocrisy. The leaven of the Sadducees; which is doctrinal compromise. But thirdly we can look out today and see:

C. The Leaven of the Herod

In Mark chapter 8 and verse 15 we find these words, “And he charged them, saying, Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, and of the leaven of Herod.”

What exactly is the leaven of Herod?

The Leaven of Herod is worldliness.

Bible Scholar - “The world is not becoming more Christian; Christians are becoming worldly.”

The Herodians were a sect of people that did anything to promote the family of the Herods.

The Herod’s were the ruling political party of the day.

The idea behind worldliness leavening the lump has to do with incorporating the philosophies of the world into the work of the local church. Simply put it is being carnally minded and carnally yielded.

This leaven is permeating both the local churches as a whole and individuals.

It is the idea of moving our trust from God to man. It is adopting the world’s ways, instead of God’s ways.

It is you and I looking to moral values versus spiritual revival.

The bottom line can be summed up by this statement, “All of us are in the world, but as God’s children we are not to be of the world. This world system is not a friend to biblical Christianity.”

That famous passage concerning separation in II Corinthians chapter 6 says this, “14 Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness 15 And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? 16 And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 17 Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you,”

We are told and admonished from the Scriptures to turn away from this world and its ways, I Corinthians 3:18 “Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise.”

And further in I John 2:16, “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.”

As we close this sermon, I like for us to reflect on the passage of Scripture once again, the word of God says,

“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. ”

I wonder as the Holy Spirit of God reveals in our hearts, have we any bit of

1. The leaven of the Pharisees in our lives; hypocrisy.

2. The leaven of the Sadduccess; denying God’s Word, doctrinal compromise.

3. The leaven of the Herodians; worldliness.