September 1931
T h e K i n g ’ s B u s i n e s s
402
ing process, is both interesting and illuminating. To grasp it is to gain an understanding of .the spiritual drift of things down to the present day. Opposition is Satan’s Method (Parable Two). He does not propose, no, not for one moment, that the gospel should have a free, undisputed field. As he withstood Christ in person, so will he withstand His truth and His followers. This opposition is a matter of history down through the centuries. Further, the darnel (tares), while growing, is scarcely distinguishable from the wheat. Satan’s opposition, then, takes the more subtle, dangerous form of imitation. He runs the entire gamut from diabolical wickedness to de ceitful righteousness. In this, the apostle exposes him, saying: “No marvel; for Satan himself is transformed in to an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of right eousness” (2 Cor. 11:14, 15). Substitution is Man’s Method (Parable Three). Man tires of the pure gospel of salvation. It becomes distasteful to him as it was in Jesus’ day (cf. John 6:60 and follow ing). He says: “Let’s have a change. Why stick to this wheat so modestly drooping its head? Let’s have some thing big and fine of which we can be proud.” So the wheat gives place to the mustard tree. It is big, but the birds are there. Satan has had his way in man’s substitu tion. Perversion is Woman’s Method (Parable Four). To introduce something foreign into the gospel, something of the world’s wisdom, perverting and distorting it till it is made to teach what it was never intended to teach and to practice what it was never intended to practice—this is woman’s way (woman being used here, as often in Scrip ture, in the bad ethical sense). How all this works out historically will occupy us next month in a study of the churches of Revelation 2 and 3. How it works out spiritually will occupy us the following month in a study of the Church Epistles. Moreover, these studies will show such amazing correspondences with Matthew 13 as to constitute conclusive proof of the structural unity of Scripture, likewise of the fidelity of our findings in the above treatment. The Modem “Motherless Home” m l uch has been said about the disappearance of the modern home, and many reasons are brought for ward as a cause. The-bridge club, the theater, the auto mobile, and the working woman’s wages have been agen cies to deprive many a dwelling of the heart that makes it a home. A generation ago, when mother spent a day shop ping, the heart-throb of the home was temporarily lulled. Now nobody misses mother, because she is rarely at home. Whether or not the maid is capable of being trusted with the family silver or the household machinery, she is left with the “less important” task of training and devel oping the minds of the next generation. Mother casts off responsibility and enjoys freedom, but she pays a tre mendous price for it in the loss of friendship with her children, and the world will pay another price in riot and disorder at the hands of those who were not disciplined in their youth.—T he P ilot . Believe Christ’s love more than your own feelings ; your Rock does not ebb .and flow though your sea does. ^ S amuel R utherford .
And the remedy? In their thought that the Lord should have the field wholly to Himself, they propose at once to root up the tares. But our Lord characterizes this as human wisdom and an impossibility. They are to grow side by side with the wheat until the very end—the har vest. Contrary to popular notions of a converted world, this age will continue to be a mixed field to its end, until the Lord of the harvest interferes. Man and His Mustard Seed. Why are we suddenly taken from the wheat field to witness the abnormal growth of a mustard tree? The answer is in the new personality introduced—man. What may be expected of him when it comes to spiritual things is indicated by the statement: “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14). Some tell us that Jesus is here foretelling the splendid growth of the church. Growth, yes; but not splendid. It is growth at the expense of the searching, spiritual prin ciples of the gospel. It is a growth that plays into the hands of Satan, making room for his agents to be at home within its fold. This is evident from the one charac terization given by our Lord. This changed seed “be- cometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof” (v. 32). But the birds He identifies as “the wicked one.” Woman and Her Leaven. Now the wheat, grown and ground into meal, is ready to be made into loaves for eat ing. Why should it not be enjoyed in its natural state, nothing added? The answer is the new personality intro duced—woman. She wants leaven in it to puff it up and render it more palatable. There are those who tell us that our Lord used leaven to picture the gospel’s inward growth, just as the pre ceding parable portrayed its outward growth. But leaven is not growth. It is a foreign substance; its operation is to puff up rather than to build up. (The same spirit that sub stitutes mustard seed resorts to leaven.) Every house wife knows that yeast will spoil the bread if allowed to continue its leavening work beyond a certain time. Before that point is reached, it must be judged with fire, driven out, and its operation stopped. Should the reader have any question as to our Lord’s intended teaching, let him take a concordance, studying every occurrence of the word “leaven.” It will be found to be used uniformly in an evil sense; it is something we are warned against and bidden to purge out. The princi ple of teaching by parable—using the known to teach the unknown—requires that our Lord employ the word around which the parable is built in the sense accepted among His hearers. He was speaking to men who kept the Passover year by year with a scrupulous riddance of every vestige of leaven, and to them His meaning was unmistakable. T he T hreefold M ethod The upshot of a portrayal of the age in the terms de scribed above is the realization that we are not to find the gospel continuing in its simple, pristine purity, as it came from the lips, the life, and the death of our Lord, but that we shall find a something that is the product of the forces subtlely at work in the field. It is the interplay of these forces, these personalities, that determines the course of the age, molds its character, and brings it to its consummation. The progressive method, employed in this checkmat
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