Not Everyone in Church Is Saved: The Parable of the Leaven

Sermon outline

The leaven in Jesus' parable is not the gospel spreading until everyone is saved but a picture of corruption at work inside professing Christianity, so each believer must make sure of his own salvation.

1. One: that view contradicts the other parables

   If the leaven were the gospel saving everyone, the parable of the wheat and the tares would be untrue, because Jesus said both grow together until the end of the age and are only separated then. The tares and the birds of the mustard seed parable are not true children of God, yet they function in the kingdom. So not everyone in the church is saved. God desires that none should perish, but hell is not empty, and the warning to the church is to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

   Illustration: Among the wheat there are tares and among the sheep there are goats, so do not hug a goat with horns and call it your brother just because it comes to church. He applies it to himself as well: a pastor who lives a reckless life and does not follow the Word will also be lost.

   “Not everyone in the church is saved.”

   • Matthew 13:24-30
   • Matthew 13:31-32
   • Matthew 25:32-33
   • John 3:16
   • 2 Peter 3:9
   • Philippians 2:12
   • Job 1:21

2. Two: leaven is never used in the Bible as a symbol of something good

   Every time Scripture speaks of leaven it speaks of corruption or fermentation, something bad or evil. If leaven meant the action of the gospel in the hearts of men, everyone would be saved, but Jesus said the end times would be like the days of Noah: people busy eating, drinking and marrying, and then one taken and the other left. He reads Matthew 24 and has the people tell each other to be ready.

   “Every time the scriptures talk about leaven, it talks about corruption or fermentation.”

   • Matthew 24:36-47

3. The kingdom of heaven represents professing Christianity

   Scholars fail to teach that leaven is a symbol of evil in the kingdom because they do not believe there is evil in the kingdom. But in these parables the kingdom has wheat and tares, good seed and bad seed, sheep and goats, good fish and bad fish, and birds in it. That frees us from pointing fingers at one another: God knows who belongs to Him, and if you are serving Him and doing what pleases Him, you belong to Him.

   “God knows who belongs to him and who doesn't belong to him.”

   • Matthew 13:24-30
   • Matthew 13:47-48

4. The three measures: an offering, and the three main streams of Christianity

   He traces three measures of meal through the Old Testament: Sarah baking for the three visitors, Gideon's unleavened cakes from an ephah of flour, and Hannah bringing an ephah to Shiloh when she consecrated her son. An ephah, he says, is three measures, the quantity used for the meal offering of the tabernacle, so this is not a domestic scene but has to do with the church. Some say the three measures are the three races descended from Noah's sons. Because Jesus is speaking of the kingdom in the New Testament age, he takes the other view: the three main streams of Christianity, Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Protestant.

   Illustration: He is careful to qualify it: there are people in all of these churches who are born again, and there are people in full gospel and charismatic churches who are not. A man may have gone to church for seventy years, from boyhood to grey hair and glasses, and still be lost. It all depends on whether you belong to the Lord.

   “There are no meaningless details in the Bible.”

   • Genesis 18:1-8
   • Judges 6:19-21
   • 1 Samuel 1:24
   • Leviticus 5:12
   • Leviticus 6:20
   • Numbers 5:15
   • Numbers 28:5

5. The meal is the church, and it is only useful with oil and water

   Meal speaks of necessary food and always has a good implication. Fine flour was used in almost half of the temple offerings, always with leaven excluded, and Elisha put flour into the poisoned pot and made it harmless. Jesus' church is one bread, which is made from flour, so the meal is the church, brought together as one bread to be a sacrifice holy and acceptable to God. Flour is only useful when it is brought together with oil, which is the Holy Spirit, and water, which speaks of baptism.

   Illustration: He asks the women who bake: to make bread at home you need flour, oil and water. Flour on its own can do nothing.

   “No church can function well without the oil of the Holy Spirit.”

   • Leviticus 2:1-6
   • 2 Kings 4:39-41
   • 1 Corinthians 10:17
   • Romans 12:1