PARABLES OF CHRIST
THE HIDDEN LEAVEN
DR. JIM DIXON
MATTHEW 13:33
AUGUST 30, 1998
In Leek County, Mississippi, a physician tells the story of a woman who came to the hospital on a hot, late summer afternoon. Earlier in that afternoon, the woman had gone to the grocery store. She had done her shopping and had come out and put the groceries in the back seat of her car. Then she remembered she had forgotten something, so she locked her car and went back into the supermarket, got what she needed, returned to her car, and began to drive home on the freeway. As she was driving home on the freeway that hot summer afternoon, suddenly she heard three pops and felt an explosion in the back of her head. She reached her hand back and grabbed the back of her head. In a panic, she drove to the hospital. As she pulled into the hospital, she told the nurses and the attendants that she had been a victim of a drive-by shooting on the freeway. Obviously, she received a lot of attention very quickly.
A doctor came to her and asked her to remove her hand from the back of her head. She said she didn’t want to do that for fear that her brains would leak out. The doctor assured her that that would not happen. As she took her hand away, the doctor was stunned to find a lump of biscuit dough on the back of her head. They all had a good laugh as they realized that a canned biscuit dough had exploded in the back of her car from her bag of groceries. Of course, that never would have happened had it not been for the hot summer afternoon heat and had it not been for leaven.
Leaven is what we are talking about this morning. Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal until it was all leavened.” Now, this is a parable that comes straight from the kitchen. In biblical times in Israel, in New Testament times in Israel, most people bought their meat at the market, but they made their bread at home. Three measures of meal was enough to make a substantial amount of bread. Leaven was simply fermented dough, dough that had been saved over from a prior baking, dough which had been allowed to ferment. A little bit of that fermented dough, a little bit of that leaven was placed in bread in order to raise the bread and flavor the bread.
Unleavened bread tended to be dry. It tended to be hard. It tended to be boring. It tended to lack flavor. But leavened bread tended to be soft, fluffy, tasty, and good to eat. The people of Israel loved leavened bread, which they ate all the time except during the season of Passover. Leaven transformed the bread.
When we think of leaven, we think of transforming power. Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to leaven.” The kingdom of heaven has transforming power. We have two teachings this morning, and the first is this: The kingdom of heaven has power to transform the world. It has power to transform this world.
It was Charles Darwin who, in 1859, wrote that famous book on “The Origin of the Species by Means of Natural Selection.” That book changed this world’s view of humanity and this world’s view of life. From 1831 to 1836, Charles Darwin took a voyage on an exploration ship called the H.M.S. Beagle. On that voyage, Darwin discovered an island with primitive people, people who were barbaric and many of whom were cannibals. They were so primitive that Darwin thought them more animal than human. In his subsequent writings, Darwin referred to the people of that island as a kind of missing link in what he viewed as the evolutionary progression of man.
Years after Darwin wrote, the London Missionary Society sent missionaries to that island. The power of the Holy Spirit was released. The power of the Holy Spirit fell upon those primitive people, and they embraced Christ willingly. They embraced the gospel, and they were transformed, and they became loving, and they became compassionate. In the later years of his life, when Charles Darwin returned to that island and he saw how the people had been changed, he marveled. It is a fact of history that he gave a substantial gift to the London Missionary Society because Charles Darwin marveled at the power of the kingdom of heaven to transform lives, to transform cultures.
Most of you have been to Manhattan Island. It was in 1625 when the Dutch first arrived on Manhattan Island, and they established a settlement which they called New Amsterdam. In 1650, there were there a thousand people living in that town of New Amsterdam. In the subsequent decade, there came a population boom and thousands of additional people came to New Amsterdam. It was 1664 when British warships came into what we now call New York Harbor. They seized the city of New Amsterdam from the Dutch. They renamed the city, calling it New York, after the Duke of York, who would later become King James II of England. Today New York City is the largest city in this nation and one of the largest cities in the world. It is the economic capital of our nation. It is, most would say, the cultural capital of this nation. For five years, from 1785 to 1790, New York was the literal, political, governmental capital of this nation. That is why George Washington was inaugurated as the first President of the United States in 1789 in the city of New York.
New York City not only has a political history and an economic history and a cultural history, but New York City also has a spiritual history. This is not only true of New York City. This is true of every city in the world. This is true of the city of Denver. Every city has a spiritual history because in every city there has been a continuing struggle between light and darkness, between good and evil, between God and Satan, Christ, and Antichrist. This is true of every city in the world.
The year was 1865 when a man named Oliver Dyer, a New York City newspaper reporter, wrote an article describing the tragic evil of New York City. In that article, Oliver Dyer claimed that if you took all the bars, all the saloons of New York City, and all the prostitution houses, all the gambling dens and you just lined them up one after another, it would create a street 30 miles long. He claimed that along that street, every night, every half-mile, somebody would be murdered. Along that 30-mile street, every night, every 165 yards, Dyer claimed, somebody would be robbed. Outside of every door of every building along that street, there would be six homeless people. He said New York City was a tragic city.
He said the most evil man in New York City was a man named John Allen who ran an infamous saloon on Water Street in New York City. After Oliver Dyer wrote that article in 1865, a minister in New York City went to see John Allen at his infamous saloon on Water Street. The minister sought to lead him to Jesus Christ. He was amazed to see that John Allen was remorseful, that he felt a great deal of guilt. John Allen was not ready to receive Jesus Christ. Indeed, he would never receive Christ, but he felt bad enough about his lifestyle and about his activities that he allowed this minister to use his saloon on Water Street one hour a day for prayer. So, one hour a day on Water Street at that saloon, all the business would shut down and people would be invited in for prayer and the Holy Spirit came in power. People began to mass to John Allen’s saloon on Water Street for afternoon prayer. They did this every day and John Allen began to get attention from the media as a man who was allowing his saloon to be used for prayer. He liked the attention, so he soon shut down the saloon and made it into a house of worship. Then he went on what he called a lecture tour of New England as the man who allowed his saloon to be used for spiritual reasons. He got so drunk in Connecticut that the newspapers reported on that and he lost credibility. He returned to New York, and he repossessed that saloon on Water Street. He shut down the worship center and he began to serve alcohol again, but the movement could not be stopped (the prayer movement).
Right next door on Water Street there was a man named Kit Burns who owned the Rat Pit Saloon. The Rat Pit Saloon was a place that had a kind of amphitheater with a sunken floor. Every day they would release rats into that pit and then they would release dogs and then they would take bets on how long it would take the dogs to devour the rats. If any rats survived, Kit Burns’ son-in-law would bite their heads off with his own teeth. This was the condition of Water Street in New York City in 1865. But Kit Bums allowed prayer meetings to come to his saloon. Every day they would wash the blood off the floor and prayer groups would meet in that rat pit. This was just jammed day after day. Eventually the saloon shut down and it became a house for reformed prostitutes. The saloon section became a chapel. The amphitheater, the rat pit, became a kitchen which was used to provide food for the ministry to street people. This began to happen all the way down Water Street in New York City in the 1860s.
It was during the 1860s that Jerry McAuley’s Water Street Mission was established, and it still flourishes on Water Street today. But Christians in the 1860s in the city of New York decided to be leaven on Water Street. They wanted to be change agents. They wanted the power of God to use them to transform their world. This call of God is equally upon us. We have been called to be change agents in this culture, in this world. God wants, by His power, to use us to transform this world, to be leaven in this world. This is not easy. Jesus said, “You are the salt of the earth. But if salt has lost its taste, how is its saltiness to be restored? It is worthless and is cast down to be trampled underfoot.” You see, Jesus would have us to understand we are to be salt in the midst of the decay and the corruption of this fallen world. If we refuse to be salt, we’re worthless. Jesus said, “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill could not be hid nor does one light a lamp to hide it under a bushel basket but place it on a lampstand that it might give light to all who are in the house. So let your light shine amongst mankind that they might see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.
The kingdom of heaven is leaven in this world, and it has transforming power as the Spirit of God works through us if we are willing. But it is not easy. Jesus said, “If they hated Me, they will hate you. If they persecuted Me, they will persecute you.” Jesus said, “Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves.” Jesus said, “You will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake.” So, there is a cost if you would be change agents and if you would be leaven in this world.
You know, just recently a group of citizens in the city of Aurora tried to enact changes in zoning laws to move pornographic businesses away from residential areas. They were effective in doing that, but an article was written in the Rocky Mountain News which called these people “egotistical, moralizing, self-righteous babblers and puritanical.” They suggested, tongue in cheek, that it was understandable that Christians were once fed to lions! You see, there is going to be a cost if you’re willing to be a change agent in this culture. You are going to take some heat.
Just six weeks ago, Jerry Kirk visited our church. He is the President of the National Coalition Against Pornography. Clay Jones, who is the son of Maxine Jones who heads our Manna Ministry and Food & Clothing Bank, also works for the National Coalition Against Pornography. They can tell you stories you do not want to hear. Pornography is a multibillion-dollar business in this nation, and it is growing rapidly. It corrupts the soul. It dehumanizes women and it dehumanizes men. Obscenity laws are virtually unenforceable in this nation. We need people willing to be salt, light, and leaven.
Thirty-five million babies have been aborted in this nation since the passing of Roe v. Wade in 1973. Thirty-five million babies. You know that most of these abortions have had nothing to do with danger to the life of the mother or even rape or incest or gross fetal deformity. Most of these abortions have simply been belated efforts at birth control in an increasingly promiscuous society. And yet if you speak against abortion, some people are going to not like you. They are going to say that you are denying women the freedom of their reproductive rights. But I do not see how anyone who wants to be salt in this world and light in this world and leaven on the earth could deny that abortion on demand, wholesale abortion, is a national tragedy. We need people willing to take a stand.
We live in a nation where homosexuality is increasingly accepted, and homosexual lifestyles are viewed as increasingly viable. I must say that as a church, we do not condone gay bashing. I must also say that as a church we do not want to deny gays and lesbians the right to make a living. We certainly do not deny them their freedom to choose their lifestyle. But we do assert, hopefully lovingly, on the basis of holy scripture, that homosexuality is a sin. It is a sin. We do not do this with arrogance. We know that we are sinners in desperate need of God’s grace, but what a tragic world this is if we were to no longer call sin, sin. Where is the leaven? Where is the salt? Where is the light? It does not matter whether homosexuality is caused in part by genetic predisposition or by environmental predisposition or by choice. We live in a fallen world, and we are to seek to overcome the things that are fallen, and we are to honor the Word of God.
Of course, we are not only to stand against sexual immorality, be it heterosexual or homosexual. We are to stand against poverty if we would be light and salt and leaven. We are to stand against oppression. We are to seek to help the poor. That is part of being leaven too. That is why you saw the slides this morning and you saw about our Whiz Kids Program in the inner city. You heard about Save Our Youth in the inner city. You have heard about our Juarez trips, and you have heard about our Manna Ministries. All of this is so that you might be light and salt and leaven on the earth. For this is the call of Christ, and it has to do with His transforming power. We will not make the world perfect in this age. It is not going to happen.
There was a time within the Christian world where there were certain Christians who were called postmillennialists. They actually believed they were going to usher in the millennium by their own work and by their own labor, and they were going to make the world perfect and then Christ would come. Everything would already be done. Everything would already be set up for Him. Of course, that’s not a biblical perspective. It never was. Only when Christ comes will He truly transform the world, for He is the leaven. But in His name, we have leavening power and we are called to be some measure of salt and some measure of light as long as we draw breath and as long as we live for Jesus here.
I do not know how any Christian can deny that we are to take Christian values to the culture. It is convenient to say that we should mind our own business—very convenient, very painless. I do not know how any Christians who read the Bible can deny that we are to take the light of God’s Word to this culture through the gospel. And we are to take the full counsel of God’s Word. You all have read the book of Jonah in the Old Testament. You know that Jonah was sent to Nineveh and Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian Empire. The Assyrians were not Jews. They were gentiles. They were not believers. They were polytheistic. But Jonah was sent there to rebuke them for their wickedness, a representative of the people of God telling those who did not even believe in God to repent of their wickedness. God cares about righteousness on the earth amongst all people and He does not want cultures to just go to rot. And so, we have this call to be leaven on the earth.
There is a second teaching this morning and the second teaching will be very brief. The second teaching is this: The kingdom of heaven has power to transform you and it has power to transform me. On May 17, David Wells pitched a perfect game for the New York Yankees. The unfortunate victims were the Minnesota Twins. Twenty-seven batters came to the plate for the Minnesota Twins and none of them reached first base. Not a single hit. Not a single walk. It was a perfect game, one of only fifteen perfect games in the history of baseball and only one of thirteen in this century. And yet if you really look at that game pitched by David Wells on May 17, it was not really perfect. He pitched 120 pitches and fifty-eight of them were balls. He did not strike out all twenty-seven batters. He only struck out eleven. If he had really pitched a perfect game, he would have struck out all twenty-seven batters and he would have pitched all strikes and not a single batter would have made contact with a single pitch. There would have been eighty-one pitches and they would have all been strikes. Every batter would have been up three pitches and out. That would have been a perfect game. But that is not humanly possible.
You see, baseball is like life and the physical is like the spiritual. It is not possible to be spiritually perfect. Jesus said that none of us are righteous. The Bible tells us that, in the presence of a holy God, all of our righteousness is as filthy rags. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. This is the message we have heard from the beginning. “God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with Him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not live according to the truth but if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus, His Son, cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His truth is not in us.”
We are all fallen, and we are all sinners. When we become Christians and we embrace Christ, we are sinners still—forgiven by the blood of Christ and the cross of Christ, but sinners still. We are to seek righteousness. We are too long, Jesus said, after righteousness. We are to let His leaven transform us. We are to let the leaven of His Word and His Spirit, the leaven of His life within us, transform us.
You know, according to the Center for Media and Public Affairs, television networks have aired more than seven hundred reports on the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky relationship. There were more than seven hundred reports by the middle of August, and in these last two weeks there have been 200 more. Most surveys show that most Americans want the whole deal to end. They want it to come to a conclusion, but I think those surveys are wrong because the television ratings have never been higher. That is why the networks keep reporting on the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky relationship. It is because the ratings are so high. Everyone is tuning in.
It is tragic what has happened in the White House. Our president is wrong when he claims that it is a private matter and none of this nation’s business because, as The Denver Post pointed out, this whole deal happened in the public’s house, on company time, with a young intern who was in the employ of the people. The deception and the promiscuity are sad. Certainly, we all pray for repentance and transformation. But, you know, I think it is sadder still that we would be more concerned with the president’s behavior than with our own. I think it is sadder still that people are so concerned with the behavior of the president and have so little concern with their own righteousness. How much hypocrisy is involved in that?
It was Leo Tolstoy who said, “Everyone wants to change humanity, and no one wants to change themselves.” Jesus wants to change you and Jesus wants to change me. He wants to transform me. He wants to give me love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control.
I am getting older. Most of you know that. If you have been here for a while, you’ve seen that. This church is 16 years old, and I felt young when it started. I am 52 years old now. I will be 53 in December. My hair is getting thinner, except in my ears and on the back of my neck. My waist is getting a little thicker. At least it is not as solid as once it was. I would do sit-ups except my back keeps going out! When Barb and I get up in the morning, we kind of shuffle for the first few steps because we are a little bit sore. And yet life is good and life’s a gift. But I think it is safe to say that physically we are not getting better. But there is a sense in which we can get better and that is spiritually. There is a sense in which we can always improve, and that is spiritually, if we would hunger and thirst after righteousness and let Christ be leaven in us. We need to pray every day and be in His word every day and seek the fellowship of believers and live a life where we long to please Christ. It is exciting to grow spiritually.
As a staff, we have made a commitment together this year to hunger and thirst after righteousness. Would you join us in that? Would be a year where you hunger and thirst after righteousness? If there is any known sin in your life, would you repent today? If there is any sin, not only of commission but of omission, would you repent today? I mean if you know that Christ has called you to certain acts of love and compassion and you are just too busy and you’re not doing it, now is the time to repent and let the Spirit of God be leaven in your life. Let us look to the Lord with a word of prayer.