Quoteworthy: Faith Undone by Leaven

“…when the Son of Man returns for His Church, He will not find “the faith” being proclaimed by elders in the Churches of the land.  The whole will have been leavened.  Those in the Churches will be talking about everything but the central message of Scripture.  And the dispensation will end with the Church — the complete Church — in the condition depicted by the Church in Laodicea.

We’re in the final days of a dispensation in which the leaven has been working for almost two millenniums.  The Church at the end of the dispensation is to be completely permeated by the leaven, and this has particular reference to the message surrounding the Word of the Kingdom.  This is the message Christ will not find being proclaimed in the Churches at the time of His return.”  From Redeemed for a Purpose by Arlen Chitwood. 

Chitwood references Jesus’ parable of the leaven in Matthew 13:33:

Another parable spake he unto 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.

Many believe that this parable is describing the tremendous growth of Christianity.  But when you compare Scripture with Scripture, leaven is never anything desirable.  In his book, A Dictionary of Bible Types, Walter Wilson writes: “In every place where leaven is mentioned, it is a type of evil teaching, evil doctrines, and evil practices.  It is always to be put away and cast out as an unclean thing.  The gospel is never called leaven.  Nothing good is ever compared to leaven.  Nothing good is ever said about leaven.” 

Leaven is mentioned for the first time in Exodus 12:15:

Seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread; even the first day ye shall put away leaven out of your houses: for whosoever eateth leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel.

Do a word search, and you will find 29 passages that reveal the true meaning of leaven.  Here are a few (emphasis is mine):

Exodus 34:25: Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven; neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the passover be left unto the morning.

In Matthew 16:6, Jesus says:  Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.

1 Corinthians 5:7: Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:

Galatians 5:9: A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.

The only passage that at first glance seems like an exception is Amos 4:5:

And offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven, and proclaim and publish the free offerings: for this liketh you, O ye children of Israel, saith the Lord GOD.

The context of this passage is that Amos is talking about the sinful women of Israel.  David Guzik sheds some light in his commentary: “Only one offering in Israel included leaven, the wave offering made on the Day of Pentecost.  Here the prophet either refers to this one offering, or to mock their corrupt sacrifices, he suggests they bring an offering polluted by leaven.”

Matthew Henry tells us: “They had their thank-offerings as God had, only they allowed leaven in them, which God had forbidden, because their priests did not like to have the bread too heavy and tasteless as it would be if it had not leaven in it.”

The days grow short.  Satan has caused the whole to be nearly leavened.  And this leaven has prevented Christians from both hearing and understanding the gospel of the Kingdom.

Will Jesus Find Faith When He Returns?

Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth? (Luke 18:8)

How can this be?  There are churches everywhere, many with thousands of believers in their congregations.  Preachers on television are reaching millions of people worldwide.  Walk into a mainstream bookstore and you will see multiple shelves of books under the section “Religion — Christianity.”  

So what is this lack of faith Jesus is talking about? 

Jesus cannot be speaking of faith that He is our Lord and Saviour because more and more people are professing this every day.  I believe that Jesus is talking about having faith that He will return to earth again, this time as our King when He establishes His Millennial Kingdom.

“We are not to concern ourselves with the day or the hour,” “Why study prophecy when we have so much to accomplish here and now?”, and “His kingdom is already here in the hearts of believers” are just a few objections you may hear if you ask the question: “Why do we hear so little about the second coming of Christ from the pulpit?”

Jesus scolded the Pharisees and the Sadducees because they should have known that He was their Messiah based upon their knowledge of Scripture:

O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times? (Matthew 16:3)

Will Jesus rebuke Christians in the same way when He returns?  Unlike the Pharisees and the Sadducees we have all of Scripture to study, which refers to Christ’s Second Advent more times than His first (some write that there are 2,400 such verses, eight times more than the verses that point to Jesus’ First Advent).

Here are just a handful of the many verses in the New Testament that make His second coming — and His purpose for coming — crystal clear:

• For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works. (Matthew 16:27)
• Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God. (1 Corinthians 4:5)
• ²³But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming.  ²⁴Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. (1 Corinthians 15:23-24)
• ¹I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom;  ²Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and doctrine. (2 Timothy 4:1-2)
• To the end he may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints. (1 Thessalonians 3:13)
• And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Thessalonians 5:23)
• Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing. (2 Timothy 4:8)
• So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation. (Hebrews 9:28)
• ¹⁴And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints,  ¹⁵To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him. (Jude 1:14-15)
• Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen. (Revelation 1:7)
• Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame. (Revelation 16:15)
• And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be. (Revelation 22:12)

 And lest we forget the last verse of Scripture:

²⁰He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.  ²¹The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen. (Revelation 22:20-21)

Jesus has promised to return — a truth that is our blessed hope!  We also need to prepare ourselves for His final judgment.  If man tells you otherwise, I pray that you will put your faith in Him.

Quoteworthy: Resist Satan

"Satan will seek to bring about a Christian's fall through the things of "the world" or "the flesh"; and Christians are specifically warned, in no uncertain terms to resist such efforts by Satan. 

And there is a revealed way in which Christians are to resist Satan:

"Whom [Satan] resist steadfast [stand 'firm,' 'unmoveable'] in the faith..." (1 Peter 5:9)

The expression, "the faith," in passages of this nature has a peculiar reference to the Word of the Kingdom (cf Luke 18:8, 2 Tim 4:7; Jude 3). Christians, in this respect, are to steadfastly resist Satan's efforts to bring about their fall through worldly or fleshly means by keeping their eyes, their attention, their thoughts, unmovably fixed on the things surrounding the coming kingdom of Christ.

In the words of Heb 12:1,2, Christians are to look "from, unto Jesus" (literal translation).  That is, they are to look from the surrounding things in this present world unto Jesus.  They are to take their eyes off the things of this world and keep them fixed upon Christ.  And looking unto Christ cannot be separated from looking into the kingdom of Christ (Dan 2:34, 35, 44, 55). Within a completely Scriptural framework, a person cannot look unto One (Christ) apart from looking unto the Other (the kingdom of Christ) at the same time.

Keeping one's eyes continuousy fixed on Christ and His coming kingdom will take care of the things of this world."

From Redeemed for a Purpose by Arlen Chitwood.

Satan’s Plan Remains the Same

For what purpose did God create man?  

Genesis 1:26 tells us:

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. (KJV)

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” (NIV)

As we well know, Satan disqualified man from ruling over the earth.  When Christ Jesus returns to establish His Millennial Kingdom, man once again will have the opportunity to rule and reign as a co-heir with Christ (2 Timothy 2:12, Revelation 20:4,6, Revelation 22:5).   

And Satan is doing everything he can to prevent this! 

In speaking about the parable of the sower, Jesus tells us that the birds of the air represent Satan (Matthew 13:9).  In the later parable of the mustard tree, Jesus says:

³¹Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field:  ³²Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.  (Matthew 13:31-32).

In this parable, Jesus prophesies that Christianity will experience abnormal growth (it is abnormal for an herb plant to grow into a tree) and that Satan will infiltrate Christianity.  I believe this is what we are witnessing today as we see so much false teaching within the halls of Christianity. 

Satan knows that every believer must stand before the Lord at the judgment seat of Christ to give an account of things done in the body (2 Corinthians 5:10).  Many believers are not even aware of this because their leaders are too busy preaching about marriage and sex, getting out of debt, having a life of abundance, self-healing, losing weight, meditation, yoga, and the list goes on and on. 

All this distraction from “seeking first the Kingdom” is exactly what Satan wants!  His mission today is the same as it was in the Garden of Eden: to disqualify man from fulfilling God’s purpose for man.

Jesus Will Appear a Second Time

Have you ever had a passage in Scripture confound you?  What I mean by this is that no matter how many times you read the passage, or ask others to explain it, it still does not make sense.

For me, one of those passages used to be Hebrews 9:28.  Here are three different translations:

So Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him. (NIV)

So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation. (KJV)

So also, after Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many,  to those who eagerly await him he will appear a second time, not to bear sin  but to bring salvation. (NET)

There is no doubt from these translations that Christ Jesus will return a second time (hallelujah!).  It is also clear that He is not coming to bear the sin of the world, which He already did for us so lovingly on the cross at Calgary.

We can also exposit from this passage that there is a salvation that He will bring to those who look for His second appearing.  This salvation must be different from the salvation that we receive when we believe in Jesus Christ, which assures us of eternal life and is something that can never be taken away.

Context is everything when studying Scripture, and I believe the verse that appears before Hebrews 9:28 sheds light on the writer’s meaning.

Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, (NIV)

The writer is referring to the judgment seat of Christ.  We read in
2 Corinthians 5:10:

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.

It appears that the salvation that the writer of Hebrews is referring to is a future salvation — salvation of the soul.  Salvation of the spirit is a free gift that is not based on our works (lest we should boast) and assures us of eternal life.  I believe this future salvation that Jesus brings without sin refers to the rewards that believers who look for His second appearing will (or will not) receive when they stand before Him at the judgment seat (see Revelation 2:10, 1 Peter 5:2-4, 1 Thessalonians 2:19-20, 2 Timothy 4:8, and 1 Corinthians 9:25-27).  I also believe this future salvation determines whether we will rule and reign with Christ during His Millennial Kingdom (see Romans 8:17, 2 Peter 3:8, Revelation 20:4).

Peter’s words refer to salvation of the soul being future in 1 Peter 1:3-9:

³ Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ⁴ and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, ⁵ who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. ⁶ In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. ⁷ These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. ⁸ Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, ⁹ for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls. (NIV, emphasis added)