The lesson this morning is in
Luke chapter 13, verses 18 through 21. Two very short parables, very commonly understood things
that anybody could understand what he was saying. Now, let's
read these together. Luke 13, verse 18. Then said he, unto what is the
kingdom of God like? If I were to describe the kingdom
of God to you, how would I do it? What could I compare it to? That's what he's asking. unto what is the kingdom of God
like, and whereunto shall I resemble it? It's like a grain of mustard
seed, which a man took and cast into a garden, and it grew, and
it waxed a great tree, and the fowls of the air lodged in the
branches of it. And again, he said, whereinto
shall I liken the kingdom of God? It's like leaven, yeast,
which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till the
whole was leavened. It's something you put into something
and it made it grow. It changed the nature of it. You know, if you don't put that
yeast in there, boy, Bread ain't bread. It's harder to rock. And our Lord, this is what I
want to talk to you about a little bit. Our Lord was a master teacher. He was the very embodiment of
wisdom. He's the wisdom of God. This
is God come into the flesh. He's perfect knowledge. His name
is the Word of God. And he was a master teacher.
John the Baptist said this about him. He said, he that cometh
from above is above all. He that is of the earth is earthly
and he speaketh of the earth. The best I can do, even with
the revelation that God's given me, the best I can do is use
earthly terms. I'm limited by what I know. I'm
limited by my mental capacities. I'm limited to tell things. A
lot of times I'm trying to describe something and I get so frustrated
because I just don't have the ability to get it out. He that's of the earth is earthly
and he speaketh of the earth. He that cometh from heaven is
above all. Now watch this. And what he hath
seen and heard, that he testifieth. When he talks about the Kingdom
of God, he knows what he's talking about. You understand what I'm
saying? This is a master teacher. What he has seen and heard, that
he testified. And here's the amazing thing.
Nobody receives his testimony. They run and grab a dictionary.
They run and grab a commentary. Nobody receives his testimony.
For he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God, for God giveth
not the Spirit by measure unto him." When you hear Him, you're
hearing the Holy Spirit of God. He has it without measure. And
His very name is the Word of God. And last week we talked
about the wisdom of God in a mystery. hidden wisdom, wisdom purposed
to be given to God's children in God's time, by God's means,
by God's Spirit. And even so, our preaching, Paul
said, is not with words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration
of the Spirit and of power. When our Lord spoke, I just want
you to think about a few things. He never gave a definition of
a word. Not one. He never defined a word. He used
words that didn't need definition. Boy, I want that to go home to
me. I want that to go home. He used words that his hearers
could understand. And he never one time referred
to a scriptural term as to what it meant in the original. How many times do we do that?
Now in the original, not one time. When our Lord created
the heavens and the earth, He created a vast universe of things
to picture His person and works. Everything in the universe was
made not only by Him, but for Him. And it speaks, the psalmist
David talked about it. It speaks, creation speaks, he
tells you in Romans 1, it speaks, it testifies. There's a testimony
in it. And he created this vast universe
of things to picture his person and work and every relationship
that we have in this world. It describes or pictures our
spiritual relationship with God and one another. What do we call
God in his saving capacity to us? Our father. Every creature, consider the
ravens. Every plant, consider the lilies. Man's like the flower of the
grass. He comes forth and blooms in his season and then he dries
up and the wind blows and he withers away. Over and over and
over he uses all these things. Light and darkness. Why is there
light and darkness? Why isn't there just light? Because they were formed. to
picture, to testify, to tell us things, to communicate things
so far over our head we can't imagine, and yet he uses these
things. The sun. He said, we do well to listen to
these prophets. You do well until the day star
arrives. That's the sun, when the sun
comes up. when the sun reveals himself
to us, and the moon, and the stars, and the night. What about the simple sands of
the seashore? All of these things he used.
And gospel language is all around us. And it's interpreted in the
purpose of God all through his word. He uses these things. When Israel was out there in
the wilderness, they had no water. Moses smoked a rock and water
gushed forth. And it said that rock followed
them everywhere they went, this big old rock. It's gushing out
enough water to feed all those millions of people and their
cattle and everything, and it followed them everywhere they
went. And the one man who was and is
the very embodiment of wisdom always spoke in the plainness
of language using things all men and women could understand.
And not only was he a master teacher and preacher and theologian,
but he was a true man of God. His heart was set on the salvation
of sinners. He had compassion. He had compassion. His attitude and conduct, his
mannerisms, his lifestyle, his daily schedule, his diet, his
clothes, everything was geared to the salvation of sinners.
Listen to this. Paul said, this is a faithful
saying. It's worthy of all acceptation. Christ Jesus came into this world
to save sinners. That's why he came, to save sinners. And not only as their representative
and substitute, but as a preacher bringing the good news to helpless
sinners. That's what he did. That's what
he did. And Paul said, we have renounced.
Listen to this. That's what Christ did. That's
who he was. That's what he was doing. And
then Paul said the same thing about himself. We have renounced
the hidden things of dishonesty. Not walking in craftiness. nor
handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth,
commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight
of God. And in our lesson this morning,
we have three things clearly illustrated in two simple parables. The subject being the Kingdom
of God. How am I going to teach you something
about the Kingdom of God? What would even resemble the
kingdom of God? And to teach us something about
that, that's the very first place he goes is teaching. Teaching. So let's look at this. The mustard
seed here is used to show us how gospel seed is sown. The kingdom of God is like a
man who took a handful of seeds and he's got a garden. He don't
go out here and throw it out here in a patch of weeds or thorns
or thistles. He has a garden. Where'd the
garden come from? God gave it to him. He gave it
to him. Where'd you get your garden?
I'm a self-made man. No you ain't. No you ain't. Everything you have comes from
God. If you've got a garden, God gave it to you. But here
that garden is talking about the kingdom of God. And in this
world, in this falling corrupt world, God has little gardens.
He's got gardens all over it. And he gives those gardens to
certain men and they take this gospel seed and they go out there
and they cast it out in the garden. Where do you cast it out? In
the garden. That's what the Lord said. You want to understand
something about the Kingdom of God, here it is. Here's a garden. Here's a man. God's given him
the ability. He's given him the seed. He didn't
invent the seed. God gave it to him. It was made
for a purpose. He throws it out in that garden. What's the man do? He go out
there and pull it up there? No. It just springs up. It just
grows. It just grows. He tells us in verse 19, a man
took it and cast it in his garden. In another place he says this,
ye are God's husbandry, God's garden. Now he said, you're his
garden. And over and over we're taught
that the means of salvation is gospel preaching. When he's talking
about casting seed in the garden, that's what he's talking about.
Gospel seed. Born again, not of corruptible
seed, but incorruptible by the Word of God. And this is the
Word which by the gospels preached unto you. That's the seed. And
the seed's cast into God's garden. Please God by the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believe. Paul said, we're ministers. That's what he wrote to the Corinthians.
We're ministers of God, by whom you believe even as the Lord
gave to every man. He told the Thessalonians, God
has chosen you from the beginning to salvation through sanctification
of spirit and belief of the truth, whereunto he called you by our
gospel. That's the casting of the seed. But here our Lord teaches us
something that escapes most today. When we preach it, it's like
casting seed in a garden. We take what God has given to
us and we cast it. My words go out. Now this man, There was wild
mustard seed, I'm sure, but they're talking about a tamed mustard
seed here in the scriptures. Something you plant in a garden,
and he took a handful and he threw it out there in that garden.
Did he run back every morning and try to dig around it and
try to pull it up? No. He just went in the house
and waited on the seeds to come out. Ain't that what you do when
you plant your garden? I can't make it grow. Only thing
I can do is cast it out. Just throw the seed. And our
goal in preaching is not to convince or convince or regenerate. Only God can do that. I can't
do that. But I can throw the seed. I can
throw the seed. And if I do this thing by argument,
let's say I'm going to find all the arguments. I'm going to find
all the facts. I'm going to get so much stuff
I can just stack it up around you like cordwood. I'm going
to convince you of this fact. Then your faith is going to stand
in the wisdom of men and not in the power of God. But if I can, by the grace of
God, just cast forth the seed of life, and God's pleased to
bless it, their faith will stand in the power of God the Spirit. In Jeremiah 3.15, the Holy Ghost
says, I will give you pastors according to my heart, which shall feed you with knowledge
and understanding. And that's as far as I can go.
That's as far as I can go. God's preachers are identified
not only by what they preach, but how they preach. How they
preach. It was prophesied of Christ.
Now we're talking about Christ, we're talking about these pictures.
Alright, listen to this. It was prophesied of Christ,
I will open my mouth in a parable. And I'll utter dark sayings of
old. And these things we're studying this morning, these are two parables.
And all these things, listen to this, all these things spake
Jesus unto the multitude in parables, and without a parable spake he
not unto them. He did this that it might be
fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I'll open
my mouth in parables. That's why he said it. This is
going to identify him. as the Christ, as the man of
God. He's speaking in parables. You can read about it in Matthew
13, 34 through 35. We take the seed given to us
by God and cast it out in the garden that he's given us. Every little church is a garden.
It's a garden. puts a man there, puts a pastor
there, puts an elder there, and he ministers to that. That's
his garden. And God has little gardens throughout
all the earth. That's where seed is cast forth.
And the same thing is shown in the leaven. If the leaven is
not hidden in the dough, it's not going to rise. It's not going
to be fit to eat. It would be hard as a rock. All right,
here's the second thing I believe he's teaching in his parables.
The results of gospel preaching. What's the result? How's he going
to picture that? It grew. Don't you love the simplicity
of the scripture? We go on and on for 45 minutes
trying to explain what he said in two words. It grew. It grew. Nothing's going to grow
unless God blesses it. It's not going to grow. This
group and the seed of the gospel will always bring forth men and
women born of God. It always will. He says back
in the book of Isaiah, he said, well, I go to the birth with
gifts and then there's going to be a miscarriage and there's
not going to be no baby. It's going to be stillborn. I'm
God. All his people are going to be
born. There are not going to be any miscarriages. They are
all going to be born, every one of them. And he put in place gifts. What
kind of gifts? Faith. By grace are you saved through
faith and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. The seed was planted and it grew.
It didn't lay in the ground and rot. It didn't start to grow
and die. It grew. And it kept on growing. It wasn't stunted, Walter. It
kept on growing. And he said it grew into a great
tree. He ain't talking about a maple
tree or an oak or a gum tree or something like that. He's
talking about this mustard plant getting big. Big enough where
the fowl of the air could come and lodge in it. It was green and growing. It
wasn't brown and dead. And then notice this. The plant
never left the garden. How come? It had roots. Read in Ephesians 4 what he said. The reason was he gave pastors
and churches that you might be rooted and grounded in him. Might all come into the unity
of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect
man. Not you being perfect, but he's
talking about Christ. Stayed in the garden where it
was planted and it found everything it needed there. Everything it needed was in God's
garden. Religion feeds on the flesh.
All you got to do is listen to them. You don't have to take
my word for it. Don't listen to them. When you walk away, you
tell me who they're glorifying. God or the flesh? Man or God? I want you to think about something.
God's purpose in salvation is to manifest his glory. Isn't
that what he said? It's to manifest his glory. That's
the purpose of God. Everything that happens must
glorify God. All of it. Start to finish. All
of it. I've heard preachers say this
from the pulpit. I grew up in false religion and
I know what I'm talking about. I've heard them say, God's done
all he can do, now it's all up to you. Who's getting the glory
out of this thing? You mean to tell me that Christ,
God, come down as a man in this earth? lived 33 and a half years
and died that ignominious death on the cross. He suffered there
and God poured his wrath out on him and he's done all he can
do and now there's something you're going to do? My soul,
who's that glorifying? That's glorifying the flesh,
that's all it is. It's all up to you. Oh no, it's
all up to God. You're already under, you were
born in condemnation. You didn't get condemned by something
you did along the way. You were born with an evil nature. Otherwise, you would have never
done anything wrong. It's all up to God, if God's
going to intervene or not. And here's what God said, I'll
have mercy on whom I will have mercy and whom I will I'll harden.
That's just so. Somebody told me one time, he
said, your God's a monster. Well, you better get ready to
meet a monster then, because that's how God reveals himself.
Read Romans chapter 9. Religion feeds on the flesh.
Yvonne's got a horse and we're keeping it over at Brother Walter's
house. He's got some pasture there and
a place where we can feed him and stuff. where the horse is,
you pass by this little stall there, and he got a billy goat
in there. And she had a handful of apples and oranges and stuff
to feed the horse. And old Billy, when he was up
there, he was clawing on the gate, you know, wanting something.
She turned around and gave him an apple, and he went... That's
a goat. That's a goat. Goats hate good
food. They won't eat briars and whatever. They'll eat anything, but they
won't eat good food. Good food, it just don't taste
good though. He calls unbelievers goats. Sheep
and goats. I'll divide the goats from the
sheep. Pastors feed the church of God
which He's purchased with His own blood, and they feed His
church with knowledge and understanding of Christ and Him crucified. That's the intervention of God. And they're no longer tossed
to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by
the sleight of men and their cunning craftiness whereby they
lie in wait to deceive. But speaking the truth in love,
they grow up into him and all things who is the head, even
Christ. And then, think about this. The
results, that's what we're talking about, the results of teaching
and preaching. What is it? It's faith. Faith
cometh by hearing, hearing by the Word of God. He turned and looked at his disciples. Most of the time, like us, they
were confused, didn't understand this or that. And he said, blessed
are your ears, they hear. What made that man mad and he
stomped out? You sat there and drank it up.
It was like roast beef and mashed potatoes to you. Blessed are your ears for that.
And faith begins as a small thing. He likens it unto the mustard
seed. It begins as a small thing. You
can't hardly tell if he believes or he don't. I wonder, you know,
Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians, that was his first epistle, first
letter. to that little church. And the
very first thing he told them was, I know your election of
God. And I don't think he'd have wrote that, except he knew that
they were struggling with it. Faith is such a small thing when
it first comes. It's such a small thing. I mean,
you might rejoice when you go out the door, but man, it won't
be a day or two, you'll be what? Do I really believe? Uh-huh. It's such a small thing. likens
it to a grain of mustard seed. But this faith is the gift of
God, and gardens don't grow till the seeds plant it. And this
faith accomplishes the purpose of God. It pleased God through
the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. By
grace are you saved through faith. We're justified, Paul said, freely
by His grace through the redemption that's in Christ Jesus, whom
God has set forth to be a propitiation, now listen, through faith in
his blood. What's that talking about? I
believe that he bled? No. Faith in his blood means
you see the sufficiency of that blood to put away your sins. And if you want to get right
down to it, he's not even talking about the blood, he's talking
about the person who died and shed that blood. Why do you do that? To declare
his righteousness for the remission of sins. God's righteous when
he puts away your sin. And then thirdly, our Lord pictures
the benefits of this work. The seed becomes a place of rest.
Isn't that something? That seed, that poor little seed,
you couldn't hardly see it. Winston, probably a hundred of
them in his hand or a thousand, throws it out there in the garden.
And this plant comes up, and it's just a tiny little thing,
you can't hardly see it. I've been waiting on my lettuce to
come up, and I have to get right down on it to see it. But it's
there. But, man, before you know it,
that mustard seed's this big. And it's become a place of rest,
the fowls of the air. They come down and lie down there,
feed on that, rest on that, spend the night there. They lodge in
it. Creatures come, lodge in its
branches. And the bread swelled. It ain't
gonna swell till you put the leaven in it. I've done it. I
went to make rolls one time, man. I had that thing all mixed
up, put it in a bowl, put the little plastic over it, you know,
put it in a warm spot. I come back about two hours and
it was just sitting there. And then it dawned on me, I didn't
put the yeast in it. He ain't going to do nothing. And our great God in heaven has
set in motion a work which is in the process, right now, in
the process. He's accomplishing this work.
He was doing this work right in the midst of those Pharisees. And they were doing everything
that they could do to discredit him, but it wasn't affecting
his work one bit. He went right on doing what he
was doing. They didn't even know what he
was doing. Even when he told them what he was doing, they
didn't know it. It's a work in process and it's
been in process for thousands of years. It began in eternity
past. In the purpose of God, it took
shape in creation. Received its foundation in the
law and the prophets. We saw his promises accomplished
on the cross. And now he sits at the right
hand of God, expecting till his enemies be made his footstool.
He told his disciples there on the hill, he was about to ascend
up into glory, and he said, all power in heaven and earth given
unto me. Now you go preach. You go preach. God's kingdom is at work. that
the very gates of hell cannot resist. And it's done with such
simplicity and such tiny means that it's not even noticed. It's
a mighty work, a heavenly work, a gracious work. And though it
seems so small in its ways and means, yet its success is undeniable,
isn't it? Absolutely undeniable. Well, let me ask you just a few
things. What would this world be without the kingdom of God
in it? Huh? What would it be? Well, look
at your churches, so-called, without any gospel, any believers. What are they like? Look at the cities with no churches
in them. Look at the homes where no believers
abide. Look at the marriages where both
are not believers. Thank God there's still some
that preach the gospel. God's not finished his work yet.
He's still planting seed in his garden. The prophet said, do not despise
the day of small things. It looks so pitiful. I look at
this little group of people, man, you couldn't even compare
this church to the churches I see. They cover two or three blocks.
It looks so pitiful, it looks so weak, and yet God uses it. He uses it. I was looking at
the stats on Sermon Audio the other day, and this past month
our messages went out into 37 states in the United States,
and went out into 18 countries around the world. Unbelievable
what God uses right here in this little group. Right here in this
little group. It's amazing, and that's what
he's telling them. Those Pharisees, they were organized
and had committees and councils and all this kind of stuff, and
the best they could do was make a proselyte, and when they made
him, he was two-fold more the child of hell than they were.
That's the very best they could do. And here's Christ. He's standing
there alone, going from Synagogue to synagogue, wherever he could
have a hearing and preach in the gospel and things were happening
all around him. Life. Life. In him was life. Life in the gospel. And that's
the difference. Everything else is form and fashion.
It's empty.