Well, good morning. Welcome to
our continuing Bible study in the Gospel According to Luke. And we're in chapter 13, and today's lesson finds us there
in verse 18 through 21. We have this parable of the mustard
seed and leaven in the midst of everything that's been going
on, and it seems kind of This is sort of out of the blue, but
if we look at it, we find that it fits right in with what's
going on. So, let's read from Luke chapter
13, starting in verse 18. Then said He, unto what is the
kingdom of God like? And where unto shall I resemble
it? It's like a grain of mustard
seed, which a man took and cast into his garden, and it grew
and waxed a great tree, and the fowls of the air lodged in it
and the branches of it." And again he said, "'Whereunto shall
I liken the kingdom of God?' It's like leaven, which a woman
took and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened."
And so, kind of an interesting parable right here in the midst
of what's been going on. What is the kingdom of God compared
to? And you know, as we kind of look
at, it's important as a kind of a preface to this message
this morning, it's kind of important that we look kind of at the overall
picture, what's happening, what's been going on. And you know,
the Lord's got His disciples are following Him, and to them,
perhaps things looked a little tenuous. for followers of Christ. They weren't well received by
the religious folks. The Pharisees and the scribes
and the elders all looked at them like they were interlopers
and taking away their power and people were going after Christ. But, you know, a lot of people
went after Him But then it seemed like we found in John 6, when
he brought some spiritual truth to them, most of them went away
and walked with him no more. John 6, 6, 6. And so these followers
of Jesus were saying, well, you know, you had dinner with those
Pharisees and they were really angry when you left. Then we
had the ones that came up to us and said, well, you know what
happened to those Galileans that went up to sacrifice and the
Romans killed them? They're all dead or gone now
and scattered. And then the Tower of Siloam
fell on a bunch of other ones and killed 18 of them. From a physical standpoint, maybe
it just didn't look real promising, you know. And nothing's changed
through time. And if we look ahead to verse 23
of Luke chapter 13, they said, Lord, are there few that be saved?
So you know that was on their mind. And through time, we find
that's been the case. You know, who has believed our
report? And I'm all alone and they want
to kill me. And so it goes. And so a few
scriptures kind of give us a little bit of insight as to what we
see here is this parable of a mustard seed and parable of leaven. in the middle of these kind of
unrelated accounts, it kind of seems like on the surface. But
we find that in the mind of Christ, all things are related and are
working for the redemption of the church. And so he gives these
words to his disciples and say, well, maybe things aren't like
they seem on the surface. And, you know, we're all prone
to underestimate the Lord God Almighty. We're just prone to
that in our flesh. And we think that the concerns
that we feel and think are hidden from Him in our hearts and our
minds unless we address Him in more of a verbal or a prayerful
kind of a condition. But if we're just thinking about
them, we think, well, He doesn't know what I'm thinking. That's
just the way we are. We think, well, he can't read
my mind. But he does all the time, you
know. And nothing is chained over time. You know, the psalmist wrote
in Psalm 139, verse 1 and 2, O Lord, thou hast searched me
and known me. Thou knowest my down-sitting
and my up-rising, thou understandest my thought afar off." So even
though he was present with these disciples, and he seems like
he's, like today, he seems like he's afar off, but he's not really.
He says, wherever two or three are gathered in My name, I'm
in the midst of them. And just because He's not visible doesn't
mean that He's not right there with us and knows our thoughts,
even though they seem to be afar off. Paul wrote about this in
Hebrews 4, verses 12 and 13. If you turn your Bibles to Hebrews
4, And, you know, last week we talked
about, in Hebrews 4, about the gospel being mixed with faith
and how that all worked. And he goes on in Hebrews 4,
verse 12, for the Word of God is quick and powerful. and sharper
than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder
of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner
of the thoughts and the intents of the heart. And neither is
there any creature that's not manifest in his sight, but all
things are naked and open unto the eyes of him with whom we
have to do." And that's really the view of the Lord that we
need to keep uppermost in our mind. Everything is naked and open
to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do. And you know,
three times in Luke, so far as we've been going through the
book of Luke, three times previously we've read in chapters 5, 6,
and 11 where it's written, Jesus knew their thoughts. They thought
they were pulling some secret scheme on him, or the disciples
thought that they had a concern, but they hadn't voiced it. But
he said, Jesus knew their thoughts. And he's always saying things
to them like, fear not, and take no thought for your your necessities. I'll take care of all those things.
Fear not them that can kill you." All those things that he says
that he knows are on their mind, and he gives them words of comfort. So he knows our thoughts. So back to our text in Luke chapter
13, where he says, what shall I compare the kingdom of God
to? that's kind of understandable
for you. And he uses a mustard seed and leaven
as similes with which most people at the time were familiar. And
they were utilized by the Lord to demonstrate a spiritual truth
here, as we find parables are always that way. And he calls
them parables here of a mustard seed. And we find that utilized throughout
the Scriptures, a mustard seed quite often utilized in Matthew
and Mark chapter 4 regarding the same circumstance where He's
talking with the disciples. And mustard seed and leaven were
both seemingly very small things which produce a great result.
And mustard seeds are frequently
used in parables and analogies by Jesus in Luke 13, 18 here
in our Scripture today. It's a small seed planted with
purpose in a specific place, in a garden it says. And it kind
of takes, you know, if you've ever seen a field of mustard,
it just kind of takes over. It just grows like crazy. He said it's like a grain of
mustard seed which a man took and cast into his garden and
it grew and waxed a great tree and the fowls of the air lodged
in the branches of it. Well mustard can get, it's not
a tree like we would think of a sycamore or a fir tree. birch or some big thing that
gets this big around at the base and humongous. But it's quite
common for it to get up to 10 feet tall under the right circumstances. And it would be big enough for
certain birds to land in it and perch and munch on bugs on it
and seeds and whatnot. wouldn't support a 15 pound great
horned owl or something like that. But smaller birds it would
certainly handle quite handily. And you know in Matthew 13, it's used in a series of parables
regarding the kingdom of God in which familiar agricultural
practices were used to teach spiritual truths about the kingdom
of God and sovereignty. Parable of the sower. That's
what it's talking about and we find that and we went through
that in Luke chapter 8. when we were back in that, the
parable of the sower. And a man sowed seed and some
of it fell on certain ground that was stony and it didn't
take root. And some of it fell on hard dirt
and it couldn't take root and it died. And some of it fell
among thorns and some of it fell along the wayside. But some of
it that fell on the good ground. And he was telling his disciples
that. He was using this parable at that time to teach them that
they were going to go out and preach the Word of God. They
were going to go out and declare the Gospel. And he says, you
don't have any control over that. Your job is to sow the seed.
And it's going to go everywhere, and some of it is going to be
heard by some, and it's not going to have any effect because the
stony ground, it's the unfertile soil, it's the hard packed soil,
it's not going to take any effect pieces, but the good ground is
the soil that's prepared by the Holy Spirit to receive that seed
and it will take root and it will grow and it will bring forth
fruit, some a hundred and some a thousand. But it's only where God has prepared
the soil. And so he used that parable in
preparation for the next parable that he gives in Matthew 13 regarding
this mustard seed. And in Matthew chapter 13, verse
31, after he just got through teaching
them this parable about sovereignty and the effect of the Word. In
Matthew 13, 31, this is another parable. He put he forth unto
them, saying, The kingdom of God is like to a grain of mustard
seed, which a man took and sowed in his field, which indeed is
the least of all seeds. But when it is grown, it's the
greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree. So the birds of the air
come and lodge in the branches thereof. And another parable
he spake unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like unto
leaven, which a woman took and he ate in three measures a meal
till the whole was leavened." And that's pretty much the same
parable that we're dealing with here in Luke chapter 13. And it's just unbelievable some
of the things that you come across and critics, biblical critics
say, well, mustard seed is not the smallest seed. The smallest
seed belongs to a jeweled orchid. And it's like 0.05 millimeters
in length, where a mustard seed is like 0.1 millimeters in length. So therefore, the whole Bible
is wrong because of this anomaly. But we look at the scriptures with
a different eye because It's not really the literal or the
spiritual application. It says, the mustard seed, which
is the least of all seeds, there in Matthew 13.32, doesn't really
address that in Luke, but in Matthew 13.32, it says, mustard
seed, which is the least of all seeds. Well, in the Greek, that's
the word mikros, And it's really a comparison work. In comparison
to other seeds, it's pretty small. In comparison to the seeds that
these folks were used to dealing with, I don't know how many of
those guys would recognize a jeweled orchid seed if they had a whole
sack of it. And I don't know how much time
they would invest in growing jeweled orchids because you couldn't
eat them. They're good to look at. Maybe
in a rich person's garden they might plant a few of them for
ornamental purposes. Most of the people that were
involved in agriculture in the day, they did it so they would
have something to eat, and they had it so that they could use
it for fodder for their animals and whatnot. So it had a practical
application for them, not just a scientific, it's the smallest
seed. Least of all seeds is, as we
said, is from Micros, and it gives the sense of, in comparison,
it's small in size, quantity, number, and sometimes it's used
to refer to dignity, small in comparison. And so in comparison
to seeds that were commonly used in the time that this was being
recorded, mustard seed's pretty small. And 0.1 millimeter in
length is what we would refer to as itty-bitty. Kind of like what we used to
say in the carpenter trade. Make that three inches and four
of those little marks. The little marks are the itty-bitty
marks. So anyway, going back to our
text here, sometimes it's used as an example of the faith that
we have of our own. The faith that we can muster
up is compared to a mustard seed on our own. And that's a situation here that
is comparatively small in relation to other things. So in Matthew
chapter 17, we have an example of faith being compared to a
mustard seed, but we find out that he's pointing out that we
don't really have a lot of faith on our own, but it's not a detriment
to the purposes and power of Christ. His purposes and what He does
in the redemption of the church is not based on the quantity
or quality or size or the amount of faith that we can muster up.
It's based on His eternal electing love. It's based on His foreknowledge
of His people. It's based on His covenant of
grace with the Father and the Holy Spirit. He saves us in spite
of ourselves when we don't have any faith at all. And we're unbelievers,
yet He takes care of that. In Matthew chapter 17, and let's
read several verses from that, Matthew 17, 18, and He had just,
in this scripture here, Jesus had cast out this devil out of
a child. And Jesus rebuked the devil and
He departed out of him and the child was cured from that very
hour. Then came the disciples to Jesus
apart and says, why could not we cast him out? And you remember
he had sent out the disciples on this mission and they said,
oh man, the devils were subject to us and we healed all manner
of diseases and we declared the gospel and we did all kinds of
wonderful things. Jesus and a couple of other disciples
were up on the mountain in prayer, and they came back down, and
the other disciples had come back from their mission. And
this person came up to them and says, well, my kid has the devil. Can you cast him out for us while
you're in the business? And they tried and they tried
and they tried, and they couldn't do it. And Jesus went over and
took care of that issue. And so the disciples in verse
19 of Matthew 17 came to Jesus' part and said, why couldn't we
cast him out? And Jesus said unto them, because
of your unbelief, boy, what a wake up call. Boy, when we think that
we're on top of everything and we're rock solid, then we come
up with something like this that throws a monkey wrench in it
and we say, Man, why is that? And he says, it's because of
unbelief. That man said, Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief,
because we all are faced with that. And he says, for verily
I say unto you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, and
that's the itty bitty thing, if you just had an itty bitty
amount of faith, you shall say unto this mountain, remove hence
to yonder place, and it shall remove, and nothing shall be
impossible to you. And in like manner, Jesus uses
this familiar leaven to apply in the parable. You know, everybody
knew that a small amount of a leavening agent
and back then they would leave some grain to ferment and that
would be their leavening agent or they would have like a sourdough
kind of a mixture that we're all kind of familiar with because
they didn't have the little foil packets of yeast like we
have now and a little jar of yeast or the various things that
we can just hop down to Safeway and pick up at a moment's notice. It required some maintenance
and you had to kind of keep it up because you would use it all
the time and so you'd take a little dab out of it and mix it in with
your dough and then you would add some more ingredients to
your your sourdough mixture to keep it growing and Fermenting
and whenever you needed some fermentation you just take a
scoop out and mix it with your your dough and and that would
cause the I think we had a lesson one of our previous Bible studies
about how it created these air bubbles in in the dough and it
would cause it to rise and expand and It would really look like
you had a lot more there than you did, really. And that was
the point of that lesson back then, is it's kind of puffed
up, is what that word leavening meant. Puffs up, makes you puffed
up, makes you seem like you have more of something than you really
do, and it's just full of air. So this term leaven was familiar
with everybody. In fact, they made a special
point of having unleavened bread for the Passover, for that ceremony. So you leave that out when you
bake the bread and it comes out kind of flat and kind of wafer-like. Usually in the scripture we find
leaven is kind of used in a negative context spiritually to demonstrate
how even a small amount of leaven works. It represents works in
these negative contexts. How even a small amount of it,
just like a, well, I'm only going to put in one teaspoon of leavening
agent here and it's only, the bread's going to expand this
much. If I put in two tablespoons,
it's going to get really big. But even a small amount has an
effect. Even a small amount of leaven
causes a change in the bread and expands it. So in the negative context, it's
usually used as a parable representing works. Don't mix works in your bread
dough. It expands through the whole
product eventually. If you just leave it there long
enough, it just keeps growing and growing and growing. If you
make bread, pretty soon you've got to punch it down, and then
pretty soon it's all coming over the side of the bowl again. You've
got to punch it down and let it do its thing. And so in the
example given in Luke and Matthew, it describes the compounding
and fatal effects of the doctrine of the Pharisees and the Sadducees
and the religious folks as a whole, this leaven. Matthew 16, 6, then Jesus said unto them, Take
heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Again, a spiritual application
of a physical thing that they were familiar with. In verse
11 of Matthew 16, he says, how is it that you don't understand
that I spake it not to you concerning bread? Remember, they said, well,
we don't have enough bread. There's all these people and
we only have hardly any bread. And he said, beware of the leaven
of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. So then he goes on to explain
to them. He doesn't go over to the Sadducees and the Pharisees
and explain it to them because to them it's not given to understand.
He says, but to you, it is given to understand. He says, how is it that you do
not understand that I spake it not to you concerning bread?
Not the physical application of making bread. That you should
beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Then understood
they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread,
but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. He likens
it to doctrine. And what was their doctrine?
Their doctrine was works. Their doctrine was keeping the
law. Their doctrine was if you be Abraham's seed. Their doctrine
was obeying all the law and sticking with them in their religious
business. You know, Paul used the same
thing as a warning against false teaching that circumcision was
necessary in addition to grace. And he brought that out in Galatians
chapter 5. And he says, you know, you allow
one small thing of works in and pretty soon the whole thing is
corrupted beyond beyond belief, and it becomes of no good. Galatians 5.1, he says, Don't
let that that leaven in. Don't let the
works in. It just takes you right back
to, you need to do this, you need to do that, and it all depends
on you. It doesn't depend on Christ.
doesn't depend on him taking care of sin and all of our issues. Stand fast, therefore, in the
liberty wherewith in Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled
again with the yoke of bondage. Behold, I, Paul, say unto you
that if you be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. For
I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he's
a debtor to do the whole law. So if you go and get circumcised
just for the purpose of righteousness, then you gotta keep that law,
and you gotta keep this law, and you gotta keep this law,
and you gotta keep this law, and this law, and this law, and
this law. You have to keep them all. Every man that's circumcised,
he's a debtor to the whole law. You can't fail in one thing of
it. which was kind of the purpose,
to trust in Christ, because He fulfilled all the law in our
place. He says, verse 6 of Galatians
5, They were just parables. They
were just pictures. They were just there. The circumcision
was a picture of cutting away the flesh. Sometimes it says
the circumcision of your ears, the circumcision of your eyes,
the circumcision of your heart. It's getting rid of the reliance
on flesh and trusting wholly to Christ was the whole point
of this circumcision. So he says, the physical act
doesn't do anything, whether you have it or whether you don't.
It means nothing except as a spiritual lesson. For in Jesus Christ neither
circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision, but faith,
total reliance in Christ, Faith which worketh by love. You did
run well. You started out really good.
You started out in grace. He says, who did hinder you that
you should not obey the truth? And then he says, a little leaven
leaveneth the whole lump. You let this guy come in and
say, well, I know you were saved by grace, but you need to be
circumcised. And then another guy will come
in and say, well, I know that you were saved by grace, but
you need to be baptized, or you need to keep the Lord's Supper,
or you need to contribute to this cause. The list is endless. The list of works is endless. You need to pray nine times a
day. It's just unimaginable all the
things that can creep up in there just by letting one little false
thing come in and pretty soon a little leaven leaveneth the
whole lump. In Luke chapter 12, Jesus warned to beware the leaven
of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. Saying one thing and doing another.
Being an actor. Pretending to be religious. You look pretty good on the outside,
but the inside is full of dead men's bones. And you're like
whited sepulchers. So watch out for that leaven,
which is hypocrisy. And it turns out most of the
things that they did were opposite of God. In opposition to Him,
in opposition to the gospel and in opposition to the kingdom.
All the things they did were steer you away. He says, you
don't enter in yourselves and you hinder those that would enter
in from entering in. So beware of that. And so the
idea concerning leaven in this instance is applied. In this
case, it's applied to good. Usually it's applied in these
negative contexts. regarding works, but here he
says the kingdom of God is like leaven. And you know, it seems
like, well, it's only a little thing. And you mix it in the
bread dough and then go away for a couple hours and pretty
soon it's And if we think of that in terms of the gospel,
and I was telling Norm this morning, I said, it kind of reminded me
of our little assembly here, our little church we have here.
We're not very big, but 382,000 people have downloaded messages
from here via sermon audio. And so from a little mustard
seed or a little leaven, you know, who can tell? the effect
of that overall. So, it's applied to good in this
parable according to the purposes of God as He explains this to
the disciples who are a little worried. You know, we're not
very many of us. Not many people seem to be believing. You know, some of us are being
killed. It doesn't seem to be very many
of us. Isaiah said, I'm all alone. And the Lord says, I have reserved
to Myself 7,000 in Israel that have not bowed the knee to Baal.
And Paul wrote about that in Romans 9. Even so, at this present time,
there's a remnant according to the election of grace. So there's
a principle here that we can apply to the whole Bible. You
know, as you go looking through the scripture, you just find
it. It's like Christ. You just find it wherever you
go. And leaven is small. The mustard seed is small. Neither
appear as though they could really accomplish great things or result
in great growth. And just in the opposite way
is just as man thinks, well, what harm could a little works
do? What harm? It's just a little bit of works.
And it makes me feel so good when I do it. Makes me feel real
religious, and makes me less dependent on Christ, who has
done all. We can go back to Deuteronomy.
I just have a few examples here. You don't have to turn in your
Bibles there. I'm just going to read you or
paraphrase the situation, and you can draw the conclusions
for yourself because we're getting a little short on time here.
But in Deuteronomy 7-7, the Lord says, "...neither because you
were the greatest, but the smallest." according to his purpose. Bethlehem,
Bethlehem, Bethlehem of Phrada, though thou be little among the
thousands of Judah, out of thee shall he come forth. Micah 5.2. He that would be least in the
kingdom shall be the greatest. Luke 9.47. You know, God chooses the things
opposite to what man thinks. It's just true. He says, I don't
do things the way you do. I don't think the way you think.
And it's a mistake for you to think that I am like you because
I'm not. God has chosen the foolishness.
God has chosen the foolish things the world to confound the wise,
and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound
the things which are mighty, and the base things of the world,
and things which are despised hath God chosen yea, and things
which are not to bring to naught things that are. You know why? He said that no flesh should
glory in his presence. It's all of Him. It's all of
Christ. It's all of God. And that's from 1 Corinthians
1, verses 27-29, if you're interested. He said, I use these small things. I use these weak things. I use
these base things. And you know, back to the Old
Testament, God chose David. David was not the biggest Memory
lined up all the sons of David's father and said, surely this
must be the king because he's like head and shoulders high
and handsome and big. and the elder, and he's, nope,
not him, nope, not him, nope, not him. And they get all the
way down to a little David who was a youth, a ruddy youth that
said, he said, this is what I'm going to use. And so he made
him king. So he was the smallest and youngest
of his brothers. You know, it's a testimony of
what the Almighty Canon does do with what we would consider
impossible conditions or elements. We would say, God's not going
to use this. He couldn't possibly use that.
And we just don't consider that He's the Almighty and He does
things according to His purpose and nothing is too hard for Him
or out of His ability. The Kingdom of God in scope and
character to us, you know, we're just a small group here It may
seem to be small in our view, and yet, in truth, it's grand
beyond measure. You know, Elijah said, I've been
very jealous for the Lord, and I am left, and they seek my life. And at that time, he said, I've
got 7,000 in Israel. And I'll bet you, Elijah said,
whoa, 7,000? And I thought I was just the
only mustard seed around. And that's, of course, quoted
in Romans chapter 11, verse 1 through 5 there by Paul. It's no different whatever age
you're in. Paul was talking to those folks
there. And he said, has God cast away His people which He foreknew?
Because it doesn't seem like there's much going on. Sometimes
there are. Sometimes we find 3,000 added
to the church in one day. And some days, it's like, will
you go away too? So you just never know how things
are going to go. The mustard seed and the leaven, once one
of them is concealed in the earth, hidden in the measure of meal,
not visible to the eye anymore. You plant that seed, you don't
see it anymore. Until the crop comes in, you
don't see the result of it. In the leaven, you mix it in
the dough, and then you stand there and watch it, and it doesn't
seem like anything's happening. But you go away for a while,
and then you come back and see the result of it. Sometimes it seems like it has
little effect, but you come back and it has like a hundred times
greater volume than you started with. You compare the days of
Noah. with the vision given John in
the revelation of Jesus Christ. In 1 Peter 3, 18 says, For Christ
hath also once suffered for sins, a just for the unjust, that he
might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but
quickened by the Spirit, by which also he went and preached unto
the spirits in prison, which sometimes were disobedient, when
once the longsuffering of God Waited in the days of Noah. Remember
Noah, preacher of righteousness? I bet he thought, not many of
us left. Wherein the ark was preparing,
wherein few, that was eight souls were saved. Eight souls out of
how many thousands or millions were on the earth In Revelation 7, verses 9 and
10, in this great vision that the Lord blessed John with, here's
the end picture that you don't see yet. Right now you think
you're just putting a little drop of mustard seed here, and
a little leaven of the gospel here, and it's mixing it in,
and it doesn't seem to have much effect. After this I beheld,
and lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, great multitude
which no man could number of all nations and kindreds and
people and tongues stood before the throne and before the Lamb
clothed with white robes and palms in their hands and cried
with a loud voice saying salvation to our God which sitteth upon
the throne and unto the Lamb." And at the time here we have
in Luke 13 many wondered if anything at all might come as a result
of this way they called it. And remember, they cast in prison
any that followed this way, they called it. Remember Gamaliel? Hey, if it's of man, it'll come
to nothing. But if it's of God, you can't stop it. Jesus said, you know, my kingdom
is not of this world, Jesus that showed no inclination
to overthrow the old Roman. He says, that's not my business. They're here according to the
purpose of God to accomplish the redemption of the church.
They're here to arrest me and haul me up the hill and nail
me to the cross. That's their purpose. He didn't come to set up an earthly
kingdom. but he was planting the seeds
of the gospel wherever the spirit had made the ground fertile and
receptive. So then he said unto us, what
is the kingdom of God like and where into shall I resemble it?
It's like a grain of mustard seed which a man took and cast
into his garden and it grew and it waxed a great tree, a number
that no man could number, a number of every kindred, tongue and
nation It's a great tree. And he said, where unto shall
I liken the kingdom of God? It's like leaven, which a woman
took and hid in three measures of meal till the whole was leaven.
So the kingdom of God is made up of all those elect that He's
redeemed through time. Sometimes it's one here, one
there. Sometimes it's 3,000. Sometimes it's 5,000. Sometimes it's just one. All
according to the sovereign electing love of God, and each generation
seems to say, well, we're pretty small. There's not many of us
left. The Montanists used to wander
around the hillsides looking for somebody that believed like
they did. When they found them, they'd just give them the big
hugs. Oh, thank God I'm not alone. There's somebody else that believes
in grace. Somebody else that believes in the sovereignty of
God. So, Peter said to the strangers that were scattered throughout
Pontus and Galatia and Cappadocia and Asia and Bithynia. They were
the church that got scattered around and everywhere they went,
they planted the mustard seed. They mixed a little leaven in
the dough, the leaven of the gospel into the dough, and they
didn't often see the result of it. But sometimes they did. Sometimes, like those Thessalonians. He says, man, you guys are known
throughout the area for your faith and for spreading the gospel
everywhere you go. But in the end, it'll all be
by grace, as he has said, a great multitude, which no man could
number, all redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, slain from the foundation
of the world. The same in the past, the same
today, and the same until the last sheep is brought home. So we've gone over our time,
so we'll stop there. And so as always, my friends,
be free.