Sermon Outlines

By Frederick F. Schwindt, Evangelist

THE PARABLE OF THE LEAVEN

1. Leaven:
   1. A piece of dough salted and soured to ferment and relish a mass of dough for bread - Hosea 7:4; I Cor. 5:6
   2. The word is used, also, in the Bible for teachings - Matt. 16:6; Gal. 5:9
2. Leaven was forbidden among the Jews:
   1. It represented impurity to them
   2. We think of the eating of unleavened bread - Ex. 12:15-19; Lev. 6:17

1. Our Lord, the great master teacher used the hidden power of leaven:
   1. To portray the hidden power of the gospel of the kingdom - Heb. 4:12
   2. Though small and seemingly insignificant to begin with, yet, powerful to move the world; Examples: The testimony of the Athenians - "These that have turned the world upside down" - Acts 17:6-19; said the Jews in Rome, "We know that everywhere it is spoken against" - Acts 28:22
2. The truth which Jesus put into His figure of the meal and the leaven is obscured for many modern minds by our worship of bigness:
   1. We are all tempted to worship size
   2. But size is an utterly fallacious standard when we are trying to estimate power - Examples: Could anyone, at the height of Rome's colossal power have thought of anything much smaller than Paul in a Roman prison writing his few letters?; but think of the result of those letters
   3. Things that are big are utterly misleading
3. There is another point here, and that is the contact is necessary between the leaven and the dough:
   1. The leaven must be mixed with the meal to affect the meal
   2. The bit of leaven is plunged into the heart of the mass and then the woman kneads the whole lump up in her pan
   3. The gospel of the kingdom must be brought into the heart to be effective; it is by contact that we influence the home, society, and the world

1. We must never underestimate the power of small things because they are small by appearance:
   1. Who ever dreamed of the hidden power of the atom
   2. Who ever measured the potential of a single rain drop
   3. Ahab saw the little cloud in the sky, but he did not realize its power to drench the country with rain - I Kings 18:44-46
2. Think of the small beginning of many great world movements:
   1. The U.S.A. the most powerful nation on earth, began with migration of a few families from other lands
   2. The Reformation began with a few disillusioned priests
   3. The Advent Movement began with a few truth-hungry men and women
3. The parable of the leaven:
   1. Is of special encouragement for the gospel worker not to despise the day of small things
   2. Think of a missionary laboring twenty years in India before he had his first baptism
   3. This writer shall never forget that he labored three years without any visible results; but following that, baptisms became an ever present experience
4. What a mighty message is found in the parable of the leaven:
   1. How is ought to fill the hearts of God's people with renewed courage to know that our labors are not in vain
   2. The gospel worker should take a new look at his humble beginning and take courage
   3. Dynamic power comes often in very small packages
   4. The great encouragement is found in the parable of the leaven that the gospel of the kingdom will triumph over sin