Luke 13:18-21

THE MUSTARD-SEED AND THE LEAVEN

Luke 13:18-21 “ Then He said, To what is the kingdom of God like, and to what shall I liken it? It is like the seed of mustard, which a man, having taken, cast into his garden, and it grew and became a tree, and the fowls of the air lodged in its branches.” The trees in the Old World are not large comparatively with this country. The mustard-tree is one of the largest in and about Palestine. If you ever go to that country, you will find some nice specimens of it at the Fountain Enrogel, near the southern coast of the Dead Sea. While the tree is one of the largest in that country, the seed, as you know in the case of the mustard-plant in this country, is very small.

The kingdom of God, when introduced into the heart by the Holy Spirit, like almost everything else, originates with a very small beginning, growing and developing, not only through this life, but all eternity. Hence it is the most progressive thing of which we have any information, not only filling the body, but utilizing the mind, to reach out its Briarean arms, and circle the world in its enterprises of love and mercy, envelop the globe with the light of the Divine glory, leaping away from the earth, sweeping out, winging its flight from world to world, realizing enlargement of capacity and fellowship, deepening, broadening, and towering through the flight of eternal ages. The lodging of the birds in the branches evidently omens no good to the tree, but magnifies the conception, not only of that exalted philanthropy peculiar to the kingdom of God, but the enhancement of its magnitude as well.

“ And again he said, To what shall I liken the kingdom of God? It is like unto leaven, which a woman having taken, hid in three measures of meal until the whole was leavened.” “Leaven” has no definition but “ corruption,” fermentation, sourness, etc. The idea that it must be substantially like the kingdom is incompatible with its lexical meaning and Scriptural use. Paul says, “A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump;” i.e., a few bad men in a Church will corrupt all the balance. A few rotten potatoes in a barrel will rot the entire quantity.

“Purify away the old leaven, in order that you may be a new lump, as you are without leaven; for Christ indeed was made our Passover.” (1 Corinthians 5:6-7.)

Here we are exhorted to purify away all the old leaven; i. e., all sin, and thus become free from the leaven, like Christ, who is our Passover. They were required diligently to remove all leaven out of their houses before the Passover, and eat unleavened bread, as the leaven symbolizes sin. The idea that leaven here, or anywhere else in the Bible, means the grace of God, is flatly contradictory of the plain and unmistakable word. Leaven corrupts everything, and invariably turns it sour, thus symbolizing sin and nothing but sin; while the grace of God sweetens everything with which it comes in contact, thus the very opposite of the sour leaven. The three races of mankind are said to have originated from the house of Noah Ham, meaning “black,” and being a black man, receiving Africa from his father, and becoming the ancestor of the black races; Shem, which means “red,” being a red man, receiving Asia for his portion, and becoming the ancestor of all the brown races of Asia and America, which was originally populated from Asia, evidently crossing at Behring's Strait; Japheth, which means “white,” being a white man, receiving Europe for his inheritance, and becoming the ancestor of all the Caucasian races. These all received the leaven of sin from Mother Eve, which has inhered in fallen humanity without exception in all the dispersions, whether beneath tropical skies, or amid the green fields of the temperate zone, or shivering in the icy wigwams around the North Pole, human depravity everywhere cropping out in corruption, impurity, bitterness, and sourness, thus extending the leaven to the ends of the earth. Now where is the point of similitude? We have already given it. While the mustard-seed, so very small, developing into a great tree, lodging and feeding the fowls of the air, symbolizes the wonderful and inscrutable progress of grace in the heart and life, the leaven symbolizes the transcendent interpenetrating power of the kingdom, going everywhere, from nation to nation, and literally reaching the whole world Many nations who are now wrapped in the fogs of Mohammedanism and heathenism, once flourished through rolling centuries in the kingdom of God. You must remember those Moslem wars desolated Africa and Asia eight hundred years, with few intermissions, doing their utmost to exterminate Christianity from the globe, largely: succeeding in many of the most populous countries of Asia and Africa, and the most fruitful fields of apostolical labor. Christianity will spread despite all the powers of earth and hell, which in bygone ages, through rolling centuries, did their utmost to exterminate it in blood and fire, slaughtering two hundred millions of martyrs, Yet Christianity moves on with the tread of a giant to the conquest of the world, and is destined actually to go everywhere, revolutionizing every country: under heaven.