All right, now let's take our
Bibles again and turn back to Matthew chapter 13. I'd like to look at one verse
of Scripture, verse 33. It's one verse, but it's one
verse spoken by our Lord that gloriously sets forth the blessed
truth of the living and powerful effect. of the Word of God and
the absolute assuredness of God's will and His purpose being done
in the salvation and the growth of His people individually. We
looked a little while ago at the parable of the Lord as He
sent forth the Kingdom of God being as a mustard seed as it
appears in the world. But now this parable has to do
with what happens in each individual believer. Now let's look at verse
33. Matthew 13, verse 33. Another
parable spake he unto them. Now let me just stop right here
before I go any farther. Those words. Another parable. Another familiar story. It's something that the Lord
is going to use. He preached. Simply. He preached in a way that the
people could understand what he was talking about. He didn't
try to talk over their heads and use big words and try to
confuse them. He spoke where they understood
what he meant, what he said. And so he's going to give a parable
and they're going to get it. They're going to get the illustration.
And listen to this. He said, the kingdom of heaven
is like unto leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures
of meal till the whole was leavened. Now, here he's going to use something
that they see. They get it. They've seen the mothers, the wives, they've
seen the women, and they're going to make some bread. That's what
they're going to do. They're going to make some bread,
and they're going to take some leaven. It's sour dough, that
which causes fermentation. I've never baked bread, but I've
heard that they can take a start. from the dough that has already
been leavened. You take a start, you take that
start, and you put it with meal that's been prepared, and you
take it and you knead that, and that leaven, it's a living organism. It's alive. It's got living enzymes
in it, and it's going to have an effect. This woman takes this leaven
and she hides it, she places it in three measures of meal
until the whole of the meal was fermented. It becomes like that
which was put in it. It was affected by the leaven. Now, you know I want to say this,
we're often reading, and rightfully so, hearing about leaven that
usually refers to sin and evil in this world. Matthew 16 6,
then Jesus said unto them, take heed and beware of the leaven
of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees. Now there he's talking about
taking something that is a Let me say this. Satan always
tries to emulate what God does. And what this leaven he's talking
about here with the Pharisees and Sadducees, it's the proclamation
of the mixing of works with grace, which is no grace at all. But
they set forth man's free will versus God's will. They set forth
man's ability and they bypass God's ability. They make salvation
to be by the works of the law instead of the free grace of
God. That's the leaven. That which
has an effect. But that leaven that the Lord
speaks of, it's not that leaven that the Pharisees, you know,
conditional salvation. The Lord's not speaking of the
evil of sin. But in this parable, He's speaking
concerning His kingdom and the blessed effect that the gospel,
now that's what the leaven means here. The gospel has upon those
that have been powerfully regenerated by the Spirit of the living God. Those that have been having life
imparted from above. into them. Now He teaches us
that the kingdom of heaven, that kingdom of God's choosing, that
kingdom according to His will, His purpose, all of God's elect,
His kingdom. Every time you hear the kingdom
of heaven, it's not talking about the glory of being in heaven,
it's talking about the kingdom of heaven that's on this earth
right now. That we behold the grace of God
to raise up his people. That's the kingdom of heaven.
Now, he's saying that this kingdom is going to have something happen
to them. There's going to be a work of
God's grace upon them. He said, I'm going to illustrate
it to you. I'm going to tell you how it
is. It's like when a woman, he says,
takes some leaven, takes that fermented and hides it, conceals
it, implants it in some meal. And our Lord used in His teaching,
He said three measures of meal. And some writers say, and maybe
this is right, maybe it's three measures of meal. Maybe it sets
forth the exactness of the number of God's elect, an elect known
only to God to men, but this leaven is placed in some meal. And it's placed there by a woman. It said a woman who, I believe
truly, can illustrate a picture of the bride herself, the church,
the wife, the bride of Christ. From within her, God calls out
preachers. who are the means of Almighty
God to proclaim the glorious gospel. And just as the Lord
is illustrating as the leaven that must be hidden within the
meal, likewise, the leaven of the gospel must be proclaimed
and by the power and grace of God, hidden. by the Spirit of
God into the vessels of God's mercy. That's what he's saying.
It's just like the woman would take some leaven and put it in
there and knead it up. He said, this is how God calls
out and grows His people. And he said, you take the leaven
of the Gospel, good leaven, place it in regenerating grace,
and it's placed, imparted with power into the vessels of His
mercy that's been prepared of God, called out. How does God
do that? He said, I'm going to give you
a new heart. I'm going to remove a heart of
stone, and I'm going to give you a new heart, a heart that
is made fresh. by the Spirit of God. I'm going
to take out a stony heart and give you a heart of flesh. A
heart now that is sensible. It's not hard and rebellious
and unhearing, unknowing. It's a living heart. A heart
of flesh. Not like flesh meaning the old
nature of man, no. But he means a sensitive heart.
A new heart. A needed heart. A heart made
tender and willing to bow. A heart now that hears. A heart
now that loves the Lord Jesus Christ, a heart that is sensible,
sensitive to his voice, the voice of the shepherd. And just as
that leaven has been kneaded into the meal, God imparts also
the gospel. And it's quiet. You put that, I remember watching
my mom and you put it in there and you put it in that meal and
you put it in a bowl and she covers it over and not all the
way full. Get up the next morning and all
the way full. It just, something happened.
It just, it had an effect on that dough. And that leaven that
was in there, it swelled it up. The leaven of the gospel, God
imparts it in regenerating grace. And it has a, at least to the
beholding of even the one in whom it was imparted and even
to others, it has a quiet and a secret influence. Until the
whole of that meal, the whole of that believer in the day of
the Lord's receiving him unto himself, you know, the Lord's
working. He's working and it prevails
in the heart of the people. What's happening is they're growing
in grace. Now remember, you know, we were
saved by grace. Through faith, and that not of
ourselves, it's a gift of God. So our salvation was by the grace
of God. What does that mean? It means
we didn't have anything to do with it. Well, I'll tell you
something else. We grow in grace like that too. We don't have anything to do
with our growing either. We grow in grace. The Lord matures
us. He matures His people. How does
He do that? He does it by the hearing of
the gospel. The same way that God calls His people out of darkness
and imparts life, that leaven of the gospel, God grows them
the same way, by the hearing of the gospel. What believer
says, well I've already heard the gospel once, I don't need
to hear it again. I've already heard it. I've been
here now for, you know, here in West Virginia for almost 17
years. And I will tell you that hear
me now and those that might hear this on the internet, I'm preaching the same thing
I'm preaching right now. I've looked at messages that
I preached when I first got here. And I'm saying the same thing. Why? Because faith cometh by
hearing. And hearing by one thing. The Word of God. The Gospel. So here he says the Kingdom of
Heaven. It's like a woman that takes
some leaven, puts it in some meal. The whole meal is consumed. It grows in maturity. How can that be? Because of the
power of the Word. The power of the leaven. It has
nothing to do with the power of the meal, the individual. It doesn't have anything to do
with them. It's the power of God that produces In the meal,
in the believer, that which God has purposed, He says, I'm going
to grow you, I'm going to teach you. Everything that's alive
grows. If something's not growing, something's
wrong. What is it about this Word? What
is it about the Gospel? Romans 1.16 says, here's what
it is. It's the power of God unto salvation
to everyone that believes it. What is the catalyst by which
God grows His people in grace? By His Word. Listen to Hebrews
4.12. The Word of God is quick. What
does that mean? It's alive. It's alive. And powerful and sharper than
any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder
of soul and spirit, the joints and marrow, a discerner, of the
thoughts and intents of the heart. Man, there's just some things
right there that you and I, we couldn't divide. How do you divide
between the thought and the intent of your heart? How do you do
that? I don't know. The Word of God does. It's marvelous. It's magnificent. Listen to this,
Jeremiah 23, 29. Is not my word like as a fire? Like a hammer that breaketh a
rock in pieces? You ask a believer, what effect
does the Word of God have upon you? That believer is going to
say, in myself, I can't tell you, but I'll tell you this,
I can't do without it, I'll tell you that. I must have it. God creates within that heart
of flesh, that heart that's alive, it's willing, and it must feed,
it must feed on the Word of God. It's that leaven in that meal,
it just grows, it's going to grow, it's going to grow. And
God's Word sent to the objects of God's mercy, they know that
there's a desire there, and though they may not be able to see,
they can't see the growth. God's people, in their minds,
if you ask them, they'll tell you, say, well, to be honest
with you, when somebody says, well, are you growing in grace?
A believer, I'll tell you what a believer would say. Well, to
be honest with you, I think I'm going backwards. I think the
older I get, The more I see of myself, my friend, that is growing
in grace. It's a growing in myself downward. I must, I must be abased. I must decline. He must be exalted. He must increase. I must decrease. That's what John said. But minute
by minute, day after day, week after week, God's people, they'll
tell you, You think you've grown more? No, I don't. No, I don't. Brother Henry Mahan
told me one time, he said, Marvin, the older I get, he said, I honestly
believe, he said, the more ignorant I see myself to be. Things that
I readily admit, I don't know, I don't understand. Proclaim
them, believe them, but I just don't understand it. But, according
to the Scriptures, the Lord said, He said, the Kingdom of Heaven,
It's like a woman that took leaven, she put it. She put it in three
measures of meal till the whole meal was affected by it, was
leavened. And this meal, and I love to
quote this scripture out of Revelation, this meal, the meal, the meal
of God's grace, the vessels of God's mercy. They're all over
this world. The kindred, tongue, people,
nation, and the work of God's Spirit preached is having the
same effect. It has the same effect over every
one of them. They all must, they're all willing
to come to Christ. They all love one another. They
all must hear the gospel. They must hear it. It's life
to them. They must feast on the bread
of heaven himself. And that leaven, having that
effect, that wonderful, marvelous effect, it makes him sensitive
to himself. It makes him sensitive to himself
as Paul the Apostle, who God called out and moved upon that
man to pen the majority of the New Testament preacher of gospel. He saw himself as a wretched
man. That's how he saw himself. Longing
to be delivered from the body of this death. And continually
confessing, I am what I am only by the grace of God. And that
believer, that vessel of God's mercy, he honestly confesses
that the life of Christ found within him, like the leaven that
was placed within the meal, was totally without the meal's work
or will. And there was nothing in the
meal. The meal, as far as that woman
was concerned, if that meal was left alone, it would have been
just like it was. Tomorrow, it would have been
just like it was. Give it a little time, no change whatsoever. It had no decision. in the matter. Where was all
of the decision making being done? Well, just like the woman
that took the leaven and put it in the meal, Almighty God,
illustrating by that woman, takes it and puts the leaven of His
Gospel in the meal, in the vessels of His mercy. And it's all according
to Him, the Lord God of glory, who chose to show mercy, who
predestinated His people unto Himself by the Lord Jesus Christ
and redeemed them with the blood of the Lamb and regenerated them
by the Holy Spirit. How much did they have to do
with that? None of it. None of it. Salvation is of the Lord. Salvation is by the grace of
God. Robert Hawker in closing. made this statement, I thought
this was so good. He said, as a little leaven, leaveneth the
whole lump. And that can go either way, depending
on what you're talking about. The leaven of the Pharisees,
if God leaves them to themselves, that leaven of the Pharisees,
the works, that will have an effect. But if it's the leaven
of God's grace, he said, as a little leaven, leaveneth the whole lump.
So the grace of God when put by the Holy Spirit into the heart
of a sinner, small and unnoticed as it is, produces such a vast
thing that angels look with wonder and astonishment at the change
that is wrought." You know, that's true. God's people, they put
no confidence in themselves. They admit that If Almighty God
had not saved them by His grace, called them by His Spirit, kept
them by His power through faith, they'd have quit. They all admitted,
every one of them admitted, but that they're still here is a
miracle of God's grace. And I pray that as we look at
these parables of the Lord and as He illustrates through these
simple daily things that we behold. May the Spirit of God teach us
and let us behold. This is what the Lord said. This
is how His kingdom is called. This is how His kingdom grows
in grace. And He's done this for His glory
and for our good.