According to 13:33, “the whole was leavened.” The whole lump, indicating Christianity, has been leavened and corrupted. The author of The Two Babylons, a book written to expose the leaven of Roman Catholicism, himself used the term reverend, indicating that he himself was not completely purged of the leaven. If you read the history of Christianity, you will see that everything in it has been leavened. For example, in the Vatican there is a painting supposedly of the Trinity. Between the picture of an old man, who represents the Father, and a young man, who represents the Son, there is a young lady, called the mother of God. Above these three there is a dove, denoting the Holy Spirit. According to this picture, Mary is ranked in the deity, and the Trinity has become a quaternity. What leaven is this!
The Roman Catholic Church has leavened everything related to Christ. They do have Christ, the meal, but they have put leaven into the meal. They also have the golden cup, but it is filled with abominations (Rev. 17:4). There is no doubt that the Catholic Church has some amount of the divine things, signified by the golden cup, but they are mixed with abominations and all manner of devilish matters. This is today’s Christendom. Without exception, everything in Christendom is a mixture. Consider the charismatic movement which has been brought into Catholicism and even mixed with the worship of Mary. Many Catholic charismatics think they are spiritual, yet they still worship Mary. The Roman Catholic Church also has what is called charismatic masses.
Whatever is not of the Spirit or of Christ is leaven. Leaven is something added to make things easy to eat. Without leaven, bread would be hard, and it would be difficult to eat and digest. The Catholic Church uses this as an excuse for the use of leaven. They say they must make it easy for people to receive Christ. The Catholic Church says that Christ is mysterious, spiritual, and abstract and that people need pictures of Him in order to apprehend Him. Our natural being likes to use certain methods to make spiritual things easier to assimilate. This is what the Bible calls leaven, and we must be careful of it. We must be purged of all leaven.
Not only the Catholic Church has taken in leaven, but the Protestant denominations and groups have also. Rock music and drama are types of leaven used to make spiritual things easier for people to accept. When I was in China, I knew of some young men in a certain organization who mixed basketball with the preaching of the gospel. Using basketball for gospel preaching is also leaven. I doubt that very many were saved through this. The whole principle of the Y.M.C.A. is leaven, for the goal of the Y.M.C.A. is to bring the heavenly standard down to the earthly level, to bring the gospel to secular society in a worldly way. So many things in Christianity are leaven. These include Christmas, Easter, idols, pictures, images, rock music, drama, and the entire Y.M.C.A. system. We must be careful not to take anything other than Christ for God’s purpose, because anything other than He is leaven. Oh, the subtle one is crouching nearby waiting for his prey! We can easily become his prey because in our human nature is the desire to make it easy for people to experience spiritual things. But whatever you use to help people to touch spiritual things is a type of leaven. The pure and sanctified way to preach the gospel and to bring people to Christ is prayer and the ministry of the Word. Do not take any other way. If after praying and ministering the Word, people will still not receive the gospel, that is up to the Lord. Whether or not people receive our word is a matter of the Father’s will. We do not want to use any gimmicks to help in our preaching. Every gimmick is leaven. We are not for a work or for a movement—we are for the testimony of Jesus.
With the appearance of the kingdom of the heavens there are three matters: the tares, the changed nature of the constituents of the kingdom; the big tree, the false façade; and the leaven, the inward corruption and rottenness. We can apply this picture to today’s Christianity. Throughout Christianity we can see tares, abnormal growth, and the corruption caused by leaven. In nearly every part of today’s Christianity there is corruption. Although there is a certain amount of truth, it is mixed with leaven. Instead of purity, there is mixture. Those who oppose and criticize us, claiming to defend the truth, must deal with all these things. Praise the Lord that we have been called out of the façade and kept from the leaven! Nevertheless, we must be on the alert not to allow another kind of leaven to come in. Be careful not to take anything other than Christ. In building up the church and spreading the Lord’s testimony, the only way is to pray and to minister the pure Word. In the eyes of God, any gimmick—anything other than Christ, the Word, prayer, and the Spirit—is leaven. We must pray until our preaching is in the power of the Spirit, and we must pray until our testimony is filled with the riches of Christ. This is the pure meal as food for God and man. This is what the Lord wants today.
I believe the reason the Lord gave all these parables showing the mysteries of the kingdom was to help the apostles and the early disciples to realize that this is the kingdom of the heavens. We must see the difference between the reality of the kingdom and the appearance of the kingdom. The reality is precious to God, but the appearance is abominable to Him. Therefore, we must treasure the reality and reject the appearance. We do not like the tares, the big tree, or the rottenness. We care for the pure wheat flour and the little mustard herb which are good for food. This is the church’s testimony, which is food to God and man. Not until the hungry and seeking ones come into the Lord’s recovery can they find the pure food for their spiritual satisfaction. Many of us can testify that we were hungry for years, but that once we came into the church, we were satisfied. Our spirit told us that here in the church there is food. Here there are no gimmicks or leaven, but fine flour with the mustard herb. This is the Lord’s recovery, and this is the dining table. This is the Lord’s testimony without the tares, the big tree, or the leaven.
Verse 34 says, “All these things Jesus spoke in parables to the crowds, and apart from a parable He spoke nothing to them.” Because of the people’s rejection, the heavenly King spoke to them not in clear words, but in parables, in order to keep the kingdom secret from them. The unveiling of the kingdom became a mystery to them.
What the heavenly King did was a fulfillment of the prophecy which said, “I will open my mouth in a parable” (Psa. 78:2). By doing so, He uttered things hidden from the foundation of the world. The kingdom people were chosen by God before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4), but the mysteries of the kingdom were hidden from the foundation of the world. The hidden things are the things concerning the kingdom. They are uttered by the heavenly King, but uttered in a mysterious way in order to make them still a secret from the people.