Beware of the Leaven
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There is a principle of Bible study (called the law of first mention) that says, "The first time a thing—a word, or a phrase—is mentioned in the Bible influences how it should be interpreted throughout the scriptures."
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
2 The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.
4 And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness.
5 God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.
Light/day are always interpreted as good/positive in the scriptures, whereas darkness/night are interpreted as bad/negative in the scriptures.
31 Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
1 Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished.
2 And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.
3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.
God did His creative work in six days and rested on the seventh. Those seven days represent our week, months and years. A day consists of 24 hours from either evening to morning or morning too evening. How do you get 3 days and 3 nights from Friday afternoon to Sunday morning as Jesus said He would be in the heart of the earth? [Mt. 12:40, Luke 11:29, Mark 8:12]
This morning as we look at the scriptures I want you to keep in mind “the law of first mention” as we listen to Jesus charge his disciples “Beware of the Leaven.”
Text; Mark 8:14-21
14 Now the disciples had forgotten to take bread, and they did not have more than one loaf with them in the boat.
15 Then He charged them, saying, “Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.”
16 And they reasoned among themselves, saying, “It is because we have no bread.”
17 But Jesus, being aware of it, said to them, “Why do you reason because you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive nor understand? Is your heart still hardened?
18 Having eyes, do you not see? And having ears, do you not hear? And do you not remember?
19 When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of fragments did you take up?” They said to Him, “Twelve.”
20 “Also, when I broke the seven for the four thousand, how many large baskets full of fragments did you take up?” And they said, “Seven.”
21 So He said to them, “How is it you do not understand?”
Jesus warns the disciples of the leaven of Pharisees and Herod
Leaven- [Yeast] Any substance that produces fermentation when added to dough. Leaven may signify the dough already infected by leaven, which was put into the flour so that the leaven could pass through the entire mass before baking, or it may refer to dough that had risen through the influence of the leaven.
Fermentation- turmoil, chaos, unrest, disruption
Leaven is used 39 times in the scriptures and every time it is in a negative/bad way. Let’s use the “law of first mention”.
15 Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses. For whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel.
1. Take Heed, Beware of the Leaven; 15
1. Take Heed, Beware of the Leaven; 15
Jesus “charged” them to “take heed/beware” of the leaven of the Pharisees, Herod and the Sadducees [Mt. 16:6]
Disciples misunderstood and thought that Jesus was rebuking them for not bringing enough bread for their journey, or that they shouldn’t eat with these groups of people. Jesus warned them to not be so gullible to the ways of these people.
Leaven of the Pharisees- hypocrisy, deception and play acting in their doctrines and teachings. They fermented and soured everyone they came in contact with. They added rules and regulations, rituals and ceremonies which put undue restrictions and burdens upon the people. [Religious]
6 He answered and said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honors Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me.
7 And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’
Leaven of Herod- depravity, immoral behavior, secular influence, worldliness. Remember Herod Antipas was nothing but a puppet of Rome. He liked to hear the preaching of John the Baptist but not enough to repent and change and therefore took his head in a drunken party he threw for himself. [World leaders]
26 And the king was exceedingly sorry; yet, because of the oaths and because of those who sat with him, he did not want to refuse her.
27 Immediately the king sent an executioner and commanded his head to be brought. And he went and beheaded him in prison,
Leaven of Sadducees- skepticism of spiritual and supernatural things such as angels, miracles, resurrection from the dead. [Mix of both]
18 Then some Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Him; and they asked Him, saying:
19 “Teacher, Moses wrote to us that if a man’s brother dies, and leaves his wife behind, and leaves no children, his brother should take his wife and raise up offspring for his brother.
20 Now there were seven brothers. The first took a wife; and dying, he left no offspring.
21 And the second took her, and he died; nor did he leave any offspring. And the third likewise.
22 So the seven had her and left no offspring. Last of all the woman died also.
23 Therefore, in the resurrection, when they rise, whose wife will she be? For all seven had her as wife.”
24 Jesus answered and said to them, “Are you not therefore mistaken, because you do not know the Scriptures nor the power of God?
This is a double warning that Jesus gives. It stressed the supreme importance of guarding against the leaven of both religionists and world leaders.
2. The Power of Leaven;
2. The Power of Leaven;
The significant thing about leaven is its power. It only takes a small amount of leaven, or yeast, to work through and affect an entire batch of dough.
Paul warns about the leaven of sexual fornication in the church
6 Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?
7 Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us.
8 Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
Paul encourages believers to stand against the leaven of false teachers of Gentiles needing to be circumcised to obey the law
9 A little leaven leavens the whole lump.
10 I have confidence in you, in the Lord, that you will have no other mind; but he who troubles you shall bear his judgment, whoever he is.
It only takes a small amount of leaven/yeast to make a batch of bread rise, so the evil teachings and hypocrisy of the religious and political leaders could permeate and contaminate the entire society.
33 Another parable He spoke to them: “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till it was all leavened.”
Lets use the law of first mention with the phrase “three measures of meal”
6 So Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah and said, “Quickly, make ready three measures of fine meal; knead it and make cakes.”
Here, "three measures of meal" is used in the context of a fellowship meal—giving hospitality, in this case, to God—so it has a spiritual connotation. With this example in mind, we can understand that Christ's use of this phrase would have made His Jewish audience think immediately of the meal offering in Leviticus 2 and they would have been absolutely shocked out of their sandals to find that someone had the audacity, to put leaven in a meal offering! It simply was not done! A person who did so could expect to be killed by the next lightning bolt out of heaven. What, then would the normal Jew have thought? He would have understood immediately that the Kingdom of Heaven would be subverted. Something good had been corrupted. [Pastor Claude Alexander AOG]
In the Scriptures leaven represents wrong or evil teaching; it never means the gospel. One of the fallacious things that is being taught today is that leaven represents the gospel in the parable of the woman who hid leaven in three measures of meal (Matt. 13:33). The meal symbolizes the gospel, and the leaven, which represents wrong teaching, was hidden in it. It is the process of making something taste good to the natural man. Actually, what is liberalism? It all came into existence by the pulpit trying to please the unsaved church members. And today we have a lot of men trying to please the congregation, even when they are unsaved. And that, may I say, is putting leaven in—that is, mixing wrong teaching with the truth of the gospel. The only kind of bread they will eat is that which has leaven because leaven makes bread taste good. I was brought up on hot biscuits, friend, and the natural man likes them. Leaven is the evil that is put in. And here Jesus is warning them about the wrong teaching of the Pharisees and Herod.
McGee, J. V. (1991). Thru the Bible commentary: The Gospels (Mark) (electronic ed., Vol. 36, p. 99). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.
Leaven is the church accepting homosexuality as a alternative lifestyle, abortion as a choice, gay marriage as everybody has a right to marry who they want, shacking up as making sure before you marry, women in the pulpit as equality, and so on and on and on!
15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.
1 Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons,
2 speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron,
10 For there are many insubordinate, both idle talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision,
11 whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole households, teaching things which they ought not, for the sake of dishonest gain.
1 But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction.
18 Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour.
19 They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us.
Close;
The just of this message is not about leaven, but for one to Beware of the Leaven. The real issue here is the lack of faith among the people of God. Just as the disciples didn’t understand and first, there are many today that don’t understand.
We see and we hear, but we do not comprehend. We read His Word, but we don’t fully believe it. We have experienced His power, but it hasn’t convinced us that we can trust Him completely.
5 Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified.