1 Corinthians chapter 5.
Sorry about that, but we're coming back to
Matthew 13.
1 Corinthians chapter 5.
It is reported commonly that there is fornication
among you, and such fornication as is not
so much as named among the Gentiles, that
one should have his father's wife.
And you are puffed up, and have not
rather mourned that he that hath done this
deed might be taken away from you.
For verily, as absent in body, but present
in spirit, have judged already as though I
were present concerning him that hath so done
this deed.
In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
when you are gathered together, and my spirit
with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ,
to deliver such and one unto Satan for
the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit
might be saved in the day of the
Lord Jesus.
Your glorying is not good.
Know you not that a little lemon loveth
the whole lump?
Purge out therefore the old leaven, that you
may be a new lump, as you are
unleavened.
For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for
us.
Therefore let us keep the feast not with
the old leaven, neither with the leaven of
malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread
of sincerity and truth.
Now turn back to Matthew chapter 13, Matthew
chapter 13 and verse 33.
Another parable spoke he to them.
The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven,
which a woman took and hid in three
measures of meal till the whole was leavened.
That's the parable we're going to look at
for a few moments this morning.
I'm not forgetting that we're due to finish
at 1235, so don't get worried.
This is the last of four parables spoken
by our Lord to the crowd.
You see in verse 36 of this chapter
how he stopped speaking to the crowd and
went into the house and spoke to the
disciples.
And as we've said already, not in wishing
to bore you again, the first four deal
with the outward appearance of the kingdom of
heaven on earth as it is in these
days.
Things have gone sadly wrong.
And the other four deal with the inner
secrets of the kingdom and are spoken to
the disciples.
Here's the last parable which tells us what
they may expect to see of the outward
development of the kingdom in this age.
Now as in the case of the parable
of the mustard seed, Jesus gives no interpretation
of it.
And therefore we've got to proceed carefully.
Remembering, as I said to you this morning,
that the popular interpretation is not always right.
And also remembering that any interpretation of the
parables which contradicts the teaching of Jesus and
which is inconsistent with his explanation of the
first two, the sow and the seed, the
wheat and the tares, cannot be right.
Now there are two possible interpretations of this
parable.
The first, the popular one, let me give
that to you.
It is that the kingdom of heaven has
become like leaven and without reading any further,
that opening phrase in the verse is the
basis of the popular teaching.
And the leaven is assumed to be good,
and as a result of its working, everything
is brought under the authority of the Lord.
The kingdom of heaven, in its outward form,
spreads throughout the whole world until everything becomes
Christian.
That's the popular idea.
Do I need to repeat?
Yes?
Right.
I don't think you want me to repeat
all.
In its outward form, the kingdom of heaven
spreads throughout the whole world until the whole
world is Christianized.
Now I reject that completely, because it's contradictory
to the whole teaching of the New Testament,
and there's more than one reason for this
rejection.
If we accept the teaching that the leaven
is good, where in every other instance in
scripture, leaven is bad, is evil.
Just let me give you one or two
verses to support that statement, one or two
examples.
One I'll give you in the Old Testament,
the picture of, no, the Feast of the
Passover, in Exodus 13, verses 3 through 7.
Just note that, don't trouble to look it
up, just note it.
The Feast of Passo, which of course commemorated
the deliverance from Egypt.
Unleavened bread had to be eaten.
No leaven had to be in the house
for seven days.
And throughout the whole of the Old Testament
you have the corrupting influence of leaven.
But in the New Testament, Matthew 16 and
verse 6, the Lord Jesus warns the disciples
to take heed and beware of the leaven
of the Pharisees and Sadducees.
Matthew 16, verse 6.
Leaven there was a sign of hypocrisy in
religion, professing to be something that we're really
not, giving devotion with our lips but not
with our heart.
Beware of it.
Matthew 16, 6.
Again, as I've just read to you in
1 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 6, Paul
says, a little leaven leavens the whole lump.
I've heard that phrase used as an argument
by Christian people for the good influence which
they hope to have.
I remember somebody saying to me just before
I went to church, they said, I trust
you'll be really leaven in that place.
Well, I said, I hope not.
But Paul goes on to say, cleanse out
the old leaven.
This is 1 Corinthians 5.
Let us keep the feast with the unleavened
bread of sincerity and truth.
Consistently, throughout scripture, leaven is a corrupting influence.
And for that one reason alone, I cannot
possibly accept that popular teaching of the parable.
A stronger reason still for rejecting it is
that it contradicts all that Jesus taught about
the outward progress of his kingdom in his
age.
It contradicts all that he taught concerning outward
progress in his kingdom.
You remember, or I hope you do, that
75% of the seed in the parable
of the sower, 75% of it fell
on unfruitful ground.
Also, the tares were sown among the wheat.
And the picture he drew of the progress
of his kingdom on earth, until he comes
again, was always conflict and apparent failure.
And let's always remember that the ultimate issue
of the kingdom is not the issue here.
It's not concerned.
There's no question of failure there.
But in the development of that kingdom on
earth, there appears to be failure.
That's always the in our minds.
If we accept, therefore, the popular interpretation of
the parable of the leaven, we find ourselves
contradicting the teaching of the first three.
Therefore, I suggested it cannot possibly be biblical.
There is, however, another interpretation of this parable.
And by the way, if you have really
time before you leave Cavernry, you should take
the opportunity of studying the parables in a
book by Alexander White.
By Alexander White.
Several books, and you'll find great blessing from
it if you have time to read them.
Let me therefore give you the scriptural and
true interpretation of this parable.
It assumes always that leaven is evil.
But it doesn't stop by reading the first
phase.
It reads right on, the kingdom of heaven
is like leaven, which a woman took and
hid in three measures of meal till the
whole, it was all leavened.
Now, if we understand the meaning of that,
you've got to take into account, just as
you do in every other parable, not only
the leaven, but you've got to include three
measures of meal in which a woman deliberately
hides leaven.
Until, by the working of the leaven, the
whole lump is under its influence.
Just as in every other parable, the wheat,
the field, the tares, the enemy, every factor
had to be taken into account, so here.
Here's the picture then, got it in your
mind, in your notes perhaps, in which this
woman hides, hides three measures of meal.
Now, what's the saviour mean by using this
picture?
The only safe answer to that question is
to recall three measures of meal as it's
used in the word of God.
Let me give you one or two instances.
First in Genesis, Genesis 18, verse 6, where
Abram and Sarah entertained the Lord for a
meal.
That must have been a wonderful occasion.
He came into their home, and they prepared
three measures of meal, and then they were
let into a secret.
He told them about coming one day to
their home of a child, Isaac, and he
told them of the immediate destruction of Solomon
Gomorrah.
The secrets of the Lord are always with
those who fear him, and so he let
them into the inner circle of friends.
And I turn over the pages in the
Bible, in my mind at least, and find
in the book of Leviticus, just note that
chapter one, first of all, the burnt offering.
Leviticus, of course, is a book which is
full of symbolic teaching.
The burnt offering, and in chapter two, the
meal offering.
Oh, the meal offering, yes, I'll leave it
at that.
The offering spoke of dedication of life to
the Lord.
The meal offering of dedication of service.
Part of that offering was retained by the
priest, and part by the worshipper.
And notice, from it, all leaven had to
be excluded.
Oh yes, all right, repeat.
The burnt offering spoke of dedication of life,
chapter one of Leviticus.
The meal offering of dedication of service, and
from it, all leaven had to be excluded,
verse four, verses ten and eleven, of Leviticus
chapter two.
There's the picture of perfect communion between God
and us, on the basis of dedication of
life and service.
Just for the sake of your notes, you
might jot down that Gideon, Judges chapter six
and verse nineteen, and Hannah, first Samuel, chapter
one, verse twenty-four, both brought such an
offering to the Lord.
Three measures of meal, like that.
Therefore, in this parable, we've got the picture
of fellowship with God, in service, spoiled, spoiled
by the intrusion of something that corrupts.
Fellowship with God, in service, spoiled by the
intrusion of something that corrupts.
The Lord requires, most of all, the dedication,
utter dedication of ourselves in service, on the
basis of Calvary, the basis of the cross.
And this parable tells us that our testimony
to his grace must be based on fellowship
with him, purge of all corruption.
Slowing down just a moment, not you, but
me, that you may just put one sentence,
note word by word.
We can only bear testimony to
the glory of the Lord, if our lives
are separated from all, of which leaven is
the symbol.
Is that it?
Really?
Right?
Okay?
Your hand is aching.
Bless you, sorry about that.
Now, after that meal, Abram stood face to
face with God and pleaded for Sodom.
And that meal was the symbol of his
separated life and the basis of his prayer.
This is particularly the sentence I wanted you
to get.
Ready?
Sure?
Here it comes.
Qualification—this is very clumsy, but I can't think
of a better way to put it.
You tell me how you would have put
it after the lecture.
I see you've put it better than I
do.
I'm sure you would.
Qualification for admission to the inner circle of
God's friends is unqualified obedience.
Got it?
Repeat?
Unqualified.
Well, what does qualified mean?
No, qualified obedience.
No, no, no.
Yes, you could.
That's right.
That would be another use of the word.
That's our stupid English language, isn't it?
It can mean other things.
I can't do that because I'm British, I
can't help it.
But look, qualification for admission to the inner
circle of God's friends is unqualified obedience.
What I mean by that sentence is that—what
do I mean?
The right, I qualify to be admitted to
God's inner circle if my obedience is without
any question.
You've got it?
Good.
And if you like to compare that, Abram's
right to pray for Sodom was based on
that, on his admission to the inner circle
of God's friends, in contrast, of course, to
Lot.
I won't—just jot down these verses and see
how Lot blew it completely.
He was down in Sodom, couldn't do anything
for the city.
He seemed, Genesis 19, 14, as one who
mocked.
He'd spoiled his testimony by allowing the spirit
of Sodom to get into him.
You can check that.
I have no time to do more than
give you the verses.
Genesis 13, 12.
Genesis 14, 12.
He had a look at Sodom.
He liked it.
He dwelt in it.
He became a magistrate.
Genesis 19, 1, when he warned them, it
was about time to get out because the
place was going to be destroyed, everybody laughed
at him.
He'd lost his testimony, in contrast to Abram.
It was a separated man who had the
power to pray and to save.
So, my last wee sentence for you to
get down is just this.
The testimony to the glory of God depends
on separation from the leaven of corruption.
Testimony to the glory of God depends on
separation from the leaven of corruption.
Just give yourselves a rest a minute.
Let me go back in my memory to
a time when I was taking an open
-air service at Southampton, you know where that
is, South England, and speaking to people who
were working at the docks there, hundreds of
them, and I was getting constantly heckled, particularly
by one man in the crowd.
And he, when I finished, rushed forward at
me and he said to me, you're a
dirty coward.
I said, what do you mean?
Oh, he said, I was wearing a dark
collar at that time.
He said, I've worn my collar that way
around and the whole thing's rubbish, nothing in
it.
Oh, I said, you mean, what, you've been
a minister?
Yeah, oh sure, it's absolute rubbish, nothing in
it.
And you've left the ministry, oh yes, long
ago.
I said, hold on a minute, you say
I'm a coward?
Well, I'm still in it and you're out
of it.
Who's the coward?
You or me?
And that was too much for him.
And he came forward and he rushed at
me, spat at me, and launched his fist
at me.
I was very glad that I used to
play rugby football and I knew how to
get him down on the ground in a
way in which he'd get the worst of
it.
And before he ever got hold of me,
I got right underneath him and chucked him
right over my head.
Oh, I couldn't do that now.
And he sort of came up sober.
He was blind drunk.
And I said to him, if you're the
coward, you need Jesus.
And he went away and I was so
interested in that man, because after all, that
sort of thing doesn't happen every day of
your life, that I thought I'd just find
out about him.
Do you know what I found?
He'd been a missionary in India for 25
years in an evangelical mission.
And one day his wife said to him,
can't take any more.
It's going to ruin the children here.
I've got to take them back to home
to get them educated.
And he argued with her and said, I
can't take it without you.
She said, well, I can't take it here
anymore.
And so she left him.
And six months later, another woman, a broken
home, a ruined missionary station, and years later,
drunk in Southampton.
My, I don't stand in any sense in
judgment of that man.
I pray for him.
It is born again.
It's not my business to know whether he
is or not.
I'll see him in heaven.
But that's leaven getting hold in a man's
life and ruining his testimony.
When you get into the ministry, you'll find
that your greatest temptation is either money or
sex.
Watch it.
The leaven.
Let's go a bit further now.
What does this leaven picture?
Well, the leaven of the Pharisees, that is
hypocrisy.
Leaven of Herod.
That's in Mark chapter eight and verse 15.
And the leaven in the church at Corinth
was sin and impurity.
All things which mar our testimony constantly.
And we need to pray daily that the
Holy Spirit would write that truth on our
heart.
Let me speak slowly for one minute.
Power, power to bring conviction to people about
Jesus, power to bring conviction to people, is
feeble to the point of impotence.
Because of internal corruption, hypocrisy, like
that.
Okay.
But thank the Lord that is not the
last word.
But I have to ask myself and ask
you, is Jesus on good terms with us
this morning?
Or is my testimony ruined by corrupting influence?
Is the principle of my life, what's the
harm in it anyway?
When Corinthians 5, 7, cleanse out the old
leaven so that you may be a new
lump.
For in fact, you are free from that
leaven for our Passover lamb has been sacrificed
Christ.
God never works in your life or mine
in a way that's contrary to his nature.
It's always by way of the cross.
I'm only really free from corruption when I'm
not free to be free of God.
You better put that down, I think, and
just think it through.
I'm only really free when I'm not free
to be free of God.
Take in Corinthians 5, 17, if any man
be in Christ is a new creation.
Old things are passed away, all things are
become new.
Therefore, sorry, oh yes,
yes, just a moment, I get my old
mind working right, coming in reverse.
You're only really free when you're not free
to be free of God.
Romans 8, 2 would be an authority for
that.
The law of the spirit of life in
Christ has set me free from the law
of sin and death.
All right, now it's a sort of post,
5, 7, yes, okay, hurry up, I mean
that's me, not you, sorry.
Just have these moments sometimes in lecture.
The thing is, and just let me give
you, give it to you, it follows the
teaching of this parable, how do I avoid
becoming a casualty?
How do I avoid being a dropout?
How can I possibly press through the strains,
which seem to accumulate as you get older,
and finish the course with all guns firing?
The needed resistance to stress can't be registered
on some computer or on some human grading
system.
There was one and only one that I
know who said, I have finished the work
which you gave me to do.
John 17, verse 4, the Lord Jesus.
And the answer to our question of how
I can avoid being a dropout is found
in a man, that's a capital M, Jesus
himself, in a man who, mixing with others,
in a living experience of stress and antagonism,
what I would call fishbowl living.
You'll find when you get into the ministry,
as I hope you will, it's like living
in a fishbowl.
Everybody comes and watches, your home is wide
open to the public, and what goes on
there is the most important thing, not your
pulpit, but your home.
And in face of every kind of opposition,
Jesus was able to report back to his
father, mission accomplished, mission accomplished.
And the reply of his father, the answer
from heaven, was he learned obedience through the
things that he suffered.
Hebrews 5, 8, do you know, and that's
a verse I've never dared to preach on.
I'd like to hear somebody preach on it,
but I wouldn't dare.
No.
He learned obedience, Jesus learned obedience through the
things that he suffered.
That's a tremendous statement.
Yes, mission accomplished, why?
Because discipline was accepted.
Discipline accepted.
That's the answer, how I avoid being a
dropout.
Mission accomplished, because discipline accepted.
Paul speaks of the dying of Jesus, not
so much as referring to death on the
cross, as to daily dying being the sort
of pattern of his life.
Always refusing to live for himself, dying completely
for the love of self-preservation.
That's what Satan tried to make him do
in the wilderness, but found he'd met his
master.
For to give up his dying in favor
of some escape scheme, which Satan offered him,
would have finished his right to claim mission
accomplished.
Oh, I'd like you just to get that
deep into your heart.
Got it?
Or do I repeat?
Three minutes to go, right?
Press your hearts.
Hallelujah.
Don't make me laugh now.
I'll go over this bit.
Paul speaks here of his dying of Christ,
not so much as of looking back on
the cross, not that.
Because he was always, always refusing to live
for himself.
Dying to the devil's temptation, the devil's lie,
of preserving himself.
You'll see that in Matthew 4, if you
look at the temptation.
To give up his dying in favor of
some scheme of self-preservation, would have finished
his right to claim mission accomplished.
And, and, and listen, that principle has got
to apply to all who follow him.
Except the discipline, oh, this is it, of
renouncing the voice that comes at you constantly
of self-preservation.
God, as I said to you yesterday, you
are daily dying more than you're right to
live.
You're daily dying more than you're right to
live.
Oh, I hope, I'm going to be back
in June, God willing.
I hope I may meet lots of people,
lots of people who really experienced a touch
from God here, a call to service.
First of all, it's a bit vague.
Then, it becomes clear, and then it absolutely
masters you.
And, we are just our lives.
As we see how God equips us for
it.
Oh, mission is the thing.
That's it, I want to be a missionary.
Of course, everybody's a missionary, or a mission
field.
If Jesus is your Lord, you're a missionary.
If he isn't, you're a mission field.
You don't have to go abroad, have a
visa, you just have to live right where
you are, and you're on a mission field.
The Lord, but mission becomes a thing.
And then, then I'll tell you what happens.
The Lord puts your feet on the ground.
It's a bit sort of an aura to
it, first.
You've got a halo.
You want to be a missionary?
Terrific.
But, then God puts your feet on the
ground.
And I'll tell you how he does it.
He applies the discipline that you've got to
accept.
And usually, I don't say always, but usually,
it is applied through clumsy and unsympathetic sort
of people that you don't like, and whose
authority we resent.
Oh, we don't mind discipline, but please, Lord,
let it be administered by some nice people.
You know, people we can really enjoy.
Nice people.
He doesn't do it that way.
Jesus learned obedience through the things that he
suffered, and he wants to build into my
life and your life patience, endurance.
So, he selects the things that I suffer
at the hands of other people.
I remember for years, and I won't give
you any names, I remember the years praying,
Lord, take that person out of my life.
I can't stand him.
I'm so glad the Lord didn't answer that
prayer.
I'm beginning to thank God for prayers he's
never answered.
How much, supposing you had every unpleasant person
taken out of your life, what an awful
lot you'd lose.
What an awful lot of benefit you would
no longer have.
Because the process of adjusting to those we
have to live with is the thing that
mellows and matures our character to be like
Jesus.
To bear about in our body the dying
of the Lord Jesus.
And the call the Lord has brought right
down to earth, because he wants the glory
of God to shine through you.
And that's only accomplished through the cross, 2
Corinthians 4 and verse 10.
That, I believe, is a natural follow through
of the parable.
The exact opposite, the refusal to accept the
corruption of leaven, which will enable me and
you to say one day, Lord, thank you.
Discipline accepted, therefore mission accomplished.
Therefore, you will know what it is to
be able to say, Lord, I'm climbing on
track with you.
Time, 12.38. Sorry about that.
Goodbye.
See you, God willing, tomorrow.