In this episode of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack Hibbs tackles the Parable of the Leaven with a unique approach that draws connections between ancient teachings and contemporary life. Highlighting Jesus’ genius in using simple parables to communicate complex spiritual realities, Hibbs explains how leaven symbolizes both growth and decay within the kingdom of God. Through illustrative storytelling and dynamic teaching, Pastor Jack makes theology accessible and practical for all Christians seeking a deeper understanding of their faith. Listeners are taken on a journey to comprehend how small influences can ripple through life with significant impact, all while maintaining
Jesus takes parabolic teaching and uses everyday natural common things to communicate the reality of the spiritual world.
SPEAKER 02 :
This is Real Life. Welcome to Real Life Radio with Pastor Jack Hibbs. I’m David Jay, thanking you for joining us today as we listen, learn, and are challenged by God’s Word, the Bible. We all know that life is full of noise. The TV is on with news you often can’t trust, dishes are clanging in the kitchen, and blaring sounds of rush hour traffic whiz by. It’s enough to make your head spin, really, but it doesn’t always have to be that way. We have special programming that can really soften the day’s hectic pace. It’s our Real Life Network. It’s designed to give you relevant, life-changing programming for the whole family that you really can trust. Titles like Ignite Your Life by Barry McGuire, Washington Watch by Tony Perkins, Happening Now with Pastor Jack, and Star Spangled Adventures for the Little Patriots. You can relax and enjoy entertainment for the whole family. The Real Life Network, it’s available on your favorite device anytime, anywhere. So don’t miss a moment that really can enrich your life with shows that inspire instead of wear you down. Sign up today for free at reallifenetwork.com. That’s reallifenetwork.com. On today’s edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack continues his series called The Parables of Jesus with a message titled Parable of the Leaven. You know, whenever Jesus spoke to the masses, he often spoke in parables, picture stories that are designed to shed light on God’s Word. But to those who refuse to listen, it’ll reveal the darkness of their hearts. You see, in this parable, Jesus is telling us that leaven that causes bread to rise is like the doctrine of the Pharisees, deception that expands as it rots. And today, Pastor Jack teaches us that the long haul of our Christian lives can start out great, but sin can wear upon even a true Christian. A little leaven or deception can spoil everything. Now, with his message called Parable of the Leaven, Here’s pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hughes.
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We ask you, Lord, in Jesus’ name, that you’d bless the study tonight, and Lord God, that you would go before us, give us ears to hear, and Father, I would just pray this, that you would visit the state of California right now by whatever means you so choose. Revival, earthquake, I don’t care. I’m asking you to move in our state. Dear God, there’s at least a couple thousand people here praying for this state right now. We pray, Lord God, in Jesus’ name, that you would galvanize us as believers, make us strong, full of faith, salt and light, recognizing really what we’re gonna hear tonight in your teaching, Lord Jesus. May we conduct ourselves As true believers, may we man up or woman up in the things of God. And Lord, make us strong for the days ahead. We pray in Jesus’ name and all God’s people said, amen. We’ll grab your Bibles tonight and turn to Matthew 13, verse 33. You say, that’s it, verse 33? Yep, it’s a little parable, but it carries a punch. We are going through our parable series, as you know by now, and we are in the study of number four in our time together. And we’re looking tonight at the parable of the leaven, or the leavened bread. Really, the leaven. What does leaven mean? We would say, though it’s not exactly the same, we would say in our culture today, we don’t talk about the word leaven. It’s a Middle Eastern concept and understanding, and for that matter, it’s a Genesis, a book of Genesis. announcement by God to us about what leaven is and what it stands for. We would say today yeast. What yeast does to a loaf of bread or to dough, leaven does the same. But the Bible’s very clear about this. The parable of the leaven. What is Jesus gonna teach us about regarding it? As you’re there in Matthew chapter 13, verse 33, look with me just back at the beginning of that chapter. In Matthew 13, verse 31, The Bible there says, and on the same day, Jesus went out of the house and sat by the sea, the Sea of Galilee. And a great multitudes were gathered together to him so that he got into a boat and sat. And the whole multitude stood on the shore. Then, verse 3 says, he spoke to them many things in prayer. parables, the parabolic teaching of Jesus. In our introduction of this series, we talked about how it’s Jesus speaking, using parables, and what it does is bring the truth of God in what we said as technicolor revelation, technicolor truth. There’s no way that you can hear a parable, now listen, and as it’s given, it is so profound that the way God engineered a parable, you either get it or you don’t get it. And when a parable goes out, it unlocks, as it were, the ears of the hearer in one way. In other words, those who want to hear from God, listen, this could be you tonight. If you want to hear from God, guess what? You are gonna hear from God. And if you don’t want to hear from God, this is what the other aspect of a parable does. If you don’t want to hear, the same truth that unlocks the mind of the person that’s willing, that same truth slams the door on the heart that doesn’t want to know. A parable is like a catalyst that digs deep into the thinking and the kaleidoscope of your mind in a pictorial way, and it either causes great blackness and shuts you down, or it causes greater light to take place. It’s absolutely awesome. It’s profound. And Jesus used parables. And so tonight we look at Matthew 13, 33, the parable of the leaven. Look at it with me there. This is another parable. He, Jesus, spoke to them and he said, the kingdom of heaven is like leaven. And every Jew in the hearing of what Jesus is saying now, their ears are up and they’re wondering, what on earth is this going to tell us? And you’ll know why in a moment. Which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till it was all leavened. Note takers, mark down Luke 13. 20. This parable is echoed in Luke’s gospel, chapter 13, verse 20 and 21. Again, he, Jesus, spoke to them and said, what shall I like in the kingdom of God? It is like leaven which a woman took in head in three measures of meal till it was leavened. The growth of this leaven in the measure of the meal. The the meal being not bacon and eggs and all this other stuff, the meal being the, we’ll say, loaf or the dough that’s present. Jesus is teaching about something very profound here, but let’s take some time to get into some background here. If you think about it, church, listen carefully. Why would Jesus use this kind of teaching? It’s pretty awesome. If you’ll think about it, God has given us, as I’ve mentioned in times past in other teachings, God has given us, I believe… In a sense, two Bibles. Now hear me out. Two Bibles this way. There is no doubt in my mind that it is obviously the word of God. This Bible that I’m holding. God has given us the Bible. Absolute truth. But it’s interesting that in the Bible, the Bible speaks about those who, in this world, who may not have access to the Bible, are by no means excused from the truth of the Bible. Isn’t that interesting? You know, there’s always that person that will say, you know, well, what about the guy that’s in Africa or the guy that’s in South America who’s never heard the Bible? Everybody, isn’t it interesting, everybody, or so many people, I should say, are so concerned about the guy that’s never heard the Bible, and yet the guy that’s arguing with you about why they don’t need Jesus, they’re hearing the Bible, and all of a sudden, they’re so compassionate about the guy in South America that’s never heard about the Bible. That’s ridiculous. The Bible tells us in Romans chapter one that the guy down in South America who’s never heard or seen a Bible, that God is speaking to that person by his creation in which the guy lives in so that he is so without excuse before God regarding God’s attributes even. Isn’t that amazing? That somehow the guy walking around in the jungles of South America, God is revealing himself to the psyche of that man and his mind and heart that I’m God. Now, how does God do that? I don’t know. That’s God’s business. The Bible says God reaches the guy running around half naked with a bone in his nose and a spear in his hand that that guy is having to choose or reject the revelation of God. Listen, God has given us the Bible, which, by the way, think of this. What was the first book to roll off the printing press? Bible. What was the first book to go electronic? Bible. What was the first book to outsell all books every year ever since it was published? Bible. It’s interesting, what book is preached on and what book is announced and what book is broadcast by radio, by TV? No other writings of any other religious founders in the world and world history but the Bible. Think of it. I remember many years ago, I don’t remember what year it was, maybe you do, but I remember one time Billy Graham was preaching and they were using all this satellite stuff and they did a world outreach and Billy Graham was preaching the gospel to 2.5 billion people in one service. That’s awesome. Never before happened. And what did he do? He preached the Bible from the Bible. God’s word. But the other Bible that I’m talking about is that revelation of creation that God has given, meaning this. Honestly, think for a moment, because you and I, humanity, I mean, you, I, us, humanity, we’ve been polluted by and we’ve been manipulated by spin, manipulation, bias, of an unbelieving world. If you look at the mountains, the clouds, animals, your skin, your life, the world, the heavens, doesn’t the Bible say that the heavens declare the glory of God? The Bible says there’s no place where you can go to escape the witness of the stars that are in the sky. A normal person, a normal person, could walk outside, never read in a Bible and say, wow, what’s up with this? This is amazing, who did this? A normal person would say, there’s got to be a God. And I need to find out who he is. Jesus takes parabolic teaching and uses everyday, natural, common things to communicate the reality of the spiritual world. You can watch a butterfly before it’s ever a butterfly. What’s that thing doing? It’s crawling around your yard with all these legs and all these feet. It’s a caterpillar. And it goes up the side of your house and hangs out there until springtime. And then it flies away. And the Greeks called that metamorpho, metamorphis. Something, this is amazing, are you ready for this? Something that is earthbound, goes up the side of your house and turns itself into basically the consistency of snot. It goes from a caterpillar to like snot. And then when all that has its chemical work, It winds up breaking out of that chrysalis and it brings out its wings and it dries its wings and all of its glory, it flies away. And it’s the same thing that was walking on the ground. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine like, now this is living, man. No more earthbound. And you look at that and you could see pictures of resurrection. You put a seed into the ground at this time of the year. You put a bulb in the ground and it dies and then out of its death comes forth a shoot and a brand new flower and a plant. It’s a beautiful thing. How does that happen? It was living, it died, and it’s alive again. If we would just look at what God is speaking to us with an open heart and a mind that is honestly simple, then the existence of God makes sense. The things of God makes perfect sense. And when Jesus taught, he taught using natural things to relate to us. And it is an awesome thing to realize.
SPEAKER 02 :
You’re listening to Real Life with Pastor Jack Hibbs. You know, to hear more episodes and maybe catch up in the series, just go to jackhibbs.com. That’s jackhibbs.com. And for now, let’s get back to our teaching. Once again, here’s Pastor Jack.
SPEAKER 01 :
Now, as we get into this teaching on leaven, mark this down, because you can look at various scholars based upon how they were instructed or brought up, and they’ll argue about this thing called leaven. But let’s let the Bible interpret the Bible. So in your note-taking, write down what is leaven, for example, in the Scriptures. Well, Exodus 12, 15 says… Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. By the way, seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. During the whole rest of the other time, you eat leavened bread. But there’s a celebration before the Lord. What is this? Passover. Seven days you will eat unleavened bread, and on the first day you shall remove leaven from your house. Why would you take leaven out of your house? What’s that all symbolic for? And during that time, you were eating unleavened bread. What’s God saying to us? For whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. This is in Egypt. When they’re coming out of Egypt, God says, this is the deal. Leaven is a picture of uncleanness or sin. Get it out of your house and throw it out. Because why? Because for the next seven days, we are sanctifying ourselves to God. The nation of Israel would do this. They do it to this day. and you will eat unleavened bread. Why, what is that? It’s a sense of purification. But why would the Bible, in an act of purification and devotion to God, why didn’t the Bible pick on avocados? Why didn’t the Bible pick on tomatoes? There’s a lot of other stuff. Because of the properties of leaven. A little speck of leaven It actually ferments. It turns into a toxin or it turns into something that is rotting and it grows or it infiltrates the rest of the dough. Yes, it smells fantastic. We love the smell of it. You like the smell of a bakery, don’t you? Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Well, I understand that. But God says, okay, you know what? The characteristics of it is that it starts out so small and it grows so much. And the act of it is that it rots whatever it comes in contact with. So I know we love it and we love the way it tastes, but God says it rots things. Now, don’t get all upset like, oh, we’ll never eat leavened bread again. No, there’s times in Scripture when God commands his people to eat leavened bread. There’s a reason for it. Pretty interesting. You can study that later on your own. Exodus 34, 25 says, you shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven. Isn’t it interesting? This is a side note. God says to the nation of Israel, when you offered the sacrifice with blood, make sure there’s no leaven. in the whole offering. Jesus was the bread of life. And the scripture makes it very clear that he is our Passover and that he was unleavened. Isn’t that cool? And he was also, look, he was also the sacrifice of blood. And God said from Exodus, don’t mix leaven with the sacrifice of blood. And Jesus is the perfect word of God. God come down to earth to die on the cross for us. And Jesus of himself said, I am the bread of life. Every Jew that heard Jesus say that went, wow. He’s meaning that he’s not leavened bread, right? They understood that. He is speaking of himself as being unleavened bread. Pure bread, pure. Isn’t that cool? I love that. Matthew 16, 6 and 12. Matthew 16, 6 and 12. Jesus said to them, take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Well, what does that mean? Does that mean the priests were out there selling bread? No. No, verse 12 says, Matthew 16, then they understood that he did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Why, because it was corrupt. So church, as we look at this parable of the leavened bread, mark this down. Number one, we’re looking at the technical truth in parables, the leaven. Number one is dangers over time. He’s warning us about dangers over a protracted period of time. He says another parable, he spoke to them The kingdom of heaven is like leaven. The concept of leaven is this, that something is corrupt in the mix. The kingdom of heaven. Now those of you who have been coming to this study, you know that Jesus has been challenging us and warning us. Remember, The sower goes out to sow seed. And in the midst of all the wonderful acts of spreading out the seed, Jesus said, is the word of God. There are those whose hearts will not receive it. In the positive, there’s a negative. Okay? In the parable. And then we talked about last week the mustard seed. That seed. It’s a good start, but it grows into such a great tree, which is tremendous, but the birds of the air lodge in its branches. With the positive, there’s the negative. And this is how parables work. And so now Jesus is telling us the kingdom of heaven, which you guys know now is the kingdom of heaven is synonymous with the kingdom of God, the church age. The last 2,000 years is like this, Jesus said. There’s gonna be leavening. So we begin to process this, pretty exciting. Jesus warns us and then challenges us that I’m talking about the long haul of the doctrine of God in the world. In Matthew 24, mark this down, this is exactly what he’s talking about. Matthew 24, 12, Jesus said, and because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. But he who endures to the end, the same shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached. Think of that. Look, leave that on the screen. Think of that for a moment. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached. I just mentioned Billy Graham preached 2.5 billion people. What did that mean? Was that of any biblical significance? Of course it was. But not everybody was reached, were they? Jesus said as we approach the end, there’s gonna be heartless people, as cold as ice, unloving. Oh, and by the way, one of the other signs will be the word of God will be preached all around the world. It’s too bad, huh, that the word of God being preached all around the world doesn’t cause everybody to be loving. Wouldn’t that be nice? And Jesus is telling us that not only is the word of God preached, now look, I don’t want to start a riot here tonight, but understand this. Are we supposed to preach the gospel to every creature? Yes. Are we not supposed to go out to all the world and preach the word of God? Yes. Are we not supposed to have missionary ventures? Yes. But clearly we will not reach all people on earth. How do you know? Because the Bible says in the book of Revelation in two places that there’s gonna come a time during the tribulation period that because of the gospel, though it is, listen, it is going out tremendously during the tribulation period, John says there’s gonna be so many people saved you can’t count them all. But there’s still something wrong. What is it? Before the end can happen, which is the reference here, Book of Revelation answers Matthew 24, before the end of the world can take place, or I should say the end of the age as we know it, at the end of the seven year tribulation period yet to come, something has to take place. The gospel has to be preached in all of the world and then the end comes. Do we have any record of that in the Bible? Yes. The Bible says that in the book of Revelation, God will dispatch his angels and they will fly through the midst of the atmosphere. This is gonna be awesome. And they proclaim the everlasting gospel to all the inhabitants of the earth and then the end comes. Wow. What’s it gonna look like? I don’t know. I’ll be watching from up there, watching them below us do the job according to Revelation 19. So the end and this gospel of the kingdom will be preached. in all the world as a witness to all nations, and then the end will come. That’s an awesome thing, but listen to this. We’re talking about a time, and we’re talking about a time now when Jesus says, from the birth of the church to the end of the church age where the church is raptured up into heaven, That’s what culminates. The church was born when the spirit came down and the church will graduate when it goes up in the rapture, whenever that comes. If it’s next week or 100 years from now, that’s when the church graduates. We don’t know when that’s gonna be. But all along the way, the Bible warns us, Jesus tells us, that one of the characteristics of the work of the church and the earth is that it’s going to be tainted by things from both outside and inside seeking to destroy the church. I got news for you. This is not very encouraging, what I’m going to say. But church is going to… Suffer greater attacks. I don’t know how that makes you feel, but take your feelings and throw them out the window because the Bible says things are going to get tough.
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pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs, here on Real Life Radio with his message called Parable of the Leaven. So glad you could take the time to be with us today. You know, this message, it’s part of Pastor Jack’s new series called The Parables of Jesus. It’s a series that highlights the teachings of Jesus while he was actually walking around here on this earth. And we’ll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio. What if the greatest battles in life aren’t fought with swords and armies, but with the struggles of the heart? What if the most defining moments of leadership come not from triumph, but from pain, betrayal, and humility? How do we handle being misunderstood or wronged, and how do we navigate the deep waters of authority, submission, and forgiveness? In A Tale of Three Kings, Jean Edwards takes us inside the lives of King Saul, King David, and Absalom, illustrating the powerful lessons learned from their brokenness and their failures. Through these kings, we discover that true leadership often comes through humility, suffering, and trusting God’s sovereignty, even in the most difficult seasons. This book will challenge you to reflect on your own heart, leadership, and your walk with God. A Tale of Three Kings by Gene Edwards. It’s available for a gift of any amount at jackhibbs.com slash realradio. That’s jackhibbs.com slash realradio. Did you know that along with the radio program, Pastor Jack also has a TV show with more of the Pastor Jack Hibbs content that you like. It’s called Real Life TV. If you enjoy Pastor Jack on the radio, you’re going to love him on TV. So check out your local listings or visit jackhibbs.com and catch the latest episodes. That’s jackhibbs.com. This program is made possible by the generous contributions of you, our listeners. Visit us at jackhibbs.com. That’s jackhibbs.com. Until next time, Pastor Jack Hibbs and all of us here at Real Life Radio wish for you solid and steady growth in Christ and in His Word. We’ll see you next time here on Real Life Radio.
