Matthew 13:15-36

14 Compare Isa_6:9-10, Septuagint. See Joh_12:37-40; Act_28:25-27; Rom_11:7-10; 2Co_3:14-16.

16-17 Compare Luk_10:23-24. See Mat_16:17.

18-23 Compare Mar_4:14-20; Luk_8:11-15.

19 Lack of understanding lays the heart open to the inroads of malignant spirit powers. The chief opposition to our Lord's ministry came from superhuman sources. Before He could even enter on His work, Satan tried to turn Him aside. He was continually casting out demons. This satanic opposition continued to the end. Satan sifted Peter and obsessed Judas. Before the kingdom will be established he will be bound (Rev_20:2). Then no evil spirit will mislead mankind until the close of the thousand years.

20 God's present evangel of pure grace expects nothing from man. It thrives in any soil. One who really receives it is never temporary. It will bear fruit in the midst of stones or thorns, for it expects no sustenance from beneath. This parable has no application whatever to the evangel of today. It refers exclusively to the proclamation of the kingdom by our Lord Himself up to the time when it was spoken. Of the many who had heard Him only one class out of four became His disciples.

24-30 See verses 36-38.

24 This parable is concerned with the future course of the kingdom proclamation before it comes. There is the same Sower as in the previous parable. There is no question of the kind of ground, but the kind of seed. The Sower put in ideal seed. His enemy sowed that which was similar in appearance, but poisonous. Darnel is so like wheat or barley before it heads out that it is practically impossible to separate them. It was customary to weed grain fields, but darnel was too like the good stalks to distinguish them. It is a strong soporific poison, and was winnowed and picked out of the wheat, grain by grain, before being ground up for meal. The darnel represents the horde of hypocrites who took their place with true disciples. There was one even among the twelve apostles. Their number greatly increased in the later years of the Pentecostal era. They will flourish at the time of the end, and perish in the Judgments which usher in the kingdom.

31-32 Compare Mar_4:30-32 Luk_13:18-19. See Dan_4:10-12.

31 Mustard, like darnel, is a menace to the grain farmer. It is not a healthful food but a condiment. Its quick growth from a small beginning is in striking contrast to the parable of the Sower. Its sinister import is confirmed by the place it gives to the birds. In the first parable these represent the wicked spirits in their opposition to our Lord's proclamation. Now they actually take their place in the branches. At the time of the end there will be an exceedingly rapid development of the kingdom among the Jews, which will head up in false Babylon,

which becomes the cage of every hateful bird (Rev_18:3), and supports the wicked spirits who once opposed the kingdom proclamation.

33 Compare Luk_13:20-21. See Zec_5:5-11.

33 Leaven, in scripture, is always a symbol of evil and corruption. The Jews cleanse all leaven out of their houses once a year at the festival of Unleavened Bread (Mat_26:17; Exo_11:15). This the apostle calls evil and wickedness (1Co_5:8). All types of Christ had to be without leaven (Exo_23:18; Exo_34:25; Lev_2:11; Lev_6:17). The meal was good. But the woman covertly introduces evil, which causes it to expand, and makes it palatable for men. The woman can hardly be any one but that false figure of the end time, great Babylon. The apostate nation will so corrupt the proclamation as to please the unregenerate in Israel. Instead of looking to Messiah to establish His reign and give them a place in it, they do as they did in the days of old, when they leaned on Egypt or Assyria, instead of on Jehovah. At the end time Babylon will be supported in millennial splendor by all the nations of the earth. It is true that the leaven of insincerity and falsehood is working in Christendom today, swelling it into a great world force, palatable to men but abominable in the sight of God, but this parable has reference to the kingdom only. Leaven typifies evil, and evil only, at all times.

34-35 Compare Mar_4:33-34.

35 This refers to the disruption of the kingdom from the house of David. This is the subject of the so-called seventy eighth psalm, from which this quotation is taken.