«YA_LIE«¥Mir^I&SflirY«

DIVINITY SCHOOL
TROWBRIDGE LIBRARY

Kingdom Parables and
Their Teaching

Works of
LEN G. BROUGHTON
Salvation and the Old Theology
Pivot Points in Romans. 12mo, cloth, 75c. net.
A series of popular studies. Given originally to large
classes of students, they are admirably adapted for
devotional study or class work.
The Second Coming of Christ
16mo, cloth, 50 cents net.
" Studies touching the kingdom, advent of Christ,
work of the Holy Spirit, resurrection, judgment and
other events connected with the close of time and
dawn of eternity."— Religious Telescope.
Table Talks of Jesus
12mo, cloth, 50 cents net.
Many of the most profound things Jesus said were
said " at meat." Dr. Broughton has gathered them
up and expounded them in a simple, helpful, extremely
helpful way.
The Soul- Winning Church
12mo, cloth, 50 cents net.
" Dr. Broughton, of Atlanta, is a well known revival
ist. Some of his addresses in this country and in Eng
land are comprised in this volume. They are plain,
pungent and spiritually quickening." — The Outlook.
Up From Sin
The Fall and Rise of a Prodigal. 12mo, cloth,
30 cents net ; paper, 15 cents.
The Prodigal son treated in the light of present day
experience.
The Revival of a Dead Church
12mo, cloth, 30 cents net ; paper, 15 cents.
" Don't fail to get this book." — _?. __. Torrey, D. D.
God's Will and My Life
18mo, cloth, 25 cents net.
A sort of autobiography, giving the author's personal
experiences and a study of God's plans for our lives.

The Kingdom Parables
and Their Teaching

A Study of
Matthew XIII

By
LEN G. BROUGHTON
Author of " Table Talks of Jesus," " The Revival of a Dead Church,'
"Salvation and the Old Theology," "Religion and Health,"
" The Second Coming of Christ," etc.

New York Chicago Toronto
Fleming H. Revell Company
London and Edinburgh

Copyright, 1910, by
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY

New York: 158 Fifth Avenue
Chicago: 80 Wabash Avenue
Toronto: 25 Richmond St. W.
London: 21 Paternoster Square
Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street

Contents
I. The Purpose: To Serve .... 11
II. The Parables and the Kingdom 15
A Definition
III. The Parable of the Sower . . 20
The Foundation Work of the Holt
Spirit
IV. The Parable of the Tares . . 29
Jesus and Satan — Good and Evil
V. The Parable of the Mustard Seed 43
The Kingdom and its External De
velopment
VI. The Parable of the Leaven . . 56
The Kingdom and the Inner Life
VII. The Parable of the Hidden
Treasure  72 -
The Kingdom and Israel ; the Pur
chase of the World
VIII. The Parable of the Pearl of
Great Price  89 -
The Kingdom and the Church
IX. The Parable of the Drag Net 101
The Kingdom Complete; the Con
summation of the Age
X. The Coming of the King . . . 116

THE PARABLES OF MATTHEW, XIII
"Behold, the sower went forth to sow;
and as he sowed, some seeds fell by the
wayside, and the birds came and devoured
them; and others fell upon the rocky
places, where they had not much earth;
and straightway they sprang up, because
they had no deepness of earth; and when
the sun was risen, they were scorched; and
because they had no root they withered
away. And others fell upon the thorns;
and the thorns grew up, and choked them:
and others fell upon the good ground, and
yielded fruit, some a hundredfold, some
sixty, some thirty."
"Another parable set He before them,
saying, The Kingdom of Heaven is likened
unto a man that sowed good seed in his
field; but while men slept, his enemy came
and sowed tares also among the wheat,
and went away. But when the blade
sprang up, and brought forth fruit, then
appeared the tares also. And the servants
of the householder came and said unto
him, Sir, didst thou not sow good seed
in thy field ? whence then hath it tares?
7

8 THE KINGDOM PARABLES
And he said unto them, An enemy hath
done this. And the servants say unto
him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather
them up? But he saith, Nay, lest haply
while ye gather up the tares, ye root up
the wheat with them. Let both grow to
gether until the harvest; and in the time
of the harvest I will say to the reapers,
Gather up first the tares, and bind them
in bundles to burn them; but gather the
wheat into my barn. "
"Another parable set He forth before
them, saying, The Kingdom of Heaven
is like unto a grain of mustard seed, which
a man took, and sowed in his field; which
indeed is less than all seeds; but when it
is grown it is greater than the herbs, and
becometh a tree, so that the birds of the
heaven come and lodge in the branches
thereof." "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 it was all
leavened." "The Kingdom of Heaven is like unto a
treasure hidden in the field; which a man
found and hid; and in his joy he goeth
and selleth all that he hath and buyeth
that field."

THE KINGDOM PARABLES 9
"Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like
unto a man that is a merchant seeking
goodly pearls; and having found one pearl
of great price, he went and sold all that he
had, and bought it."
"Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like
unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and
gathered of every kind; which, when it
was filled, they drew up on the beach; and
they sat down, and gathered the good into
vessels, but the bad they cast away. So
shall it be in the end of the world; the
angels shall come forth and sever the
wicked from among the righteous, and shall
cast them into the furnace of fire; there
shall be the weeping and gnashing of
teeth."

THE PURPOSE : TO SERVE
THE purpose of this little book ia to
present a view of the teaching of
the seven parables of our Lord
contained in the thirteenth chapter of Mat
thew's gospel concerning "the Kingdom
of Heaven." This view of their teaching
may not accord with the views of teachers
most generally trusted for interpretation,
and for this reason I have felt a certain
diffidence in the matter.
For a number of years I have been a
premillennialist. I believe firmly that the
Scriptures teach that Jesus is coming back
to the earth to set up His world-wide
reign, which we call the millennium. I can
not find one thing in the Scriptures that
supports the teaching that the Church in
this dispensation is to convert the world,
which is the position of the post-millen-
nialists. I do not say that other men
11

12 THE KINGDOM PARABLES
equally as honest and sincere as I am do
not see it differently.
In studying these parables of the King
dom I have been led to believe that our
Lord is here endeavoring to set forth the
method of the formation of His Kingdom,
which is to be a Kingdom on this earth,
and when He comes from Heaven the sec
ond time He will be the literal, reigning
King. Some of these parables are interpreted
by pre-millennialists in a way that appears
to me contrary to the Scripture scheme
and to reason. I can never believe, for
example, that the parable of the Leaven
means to teach the progress of sin. Nor,
on the other hand, can I accept the post-
millennial teaching that the leaven is the
gospel, and is intended to show that the
gospel in this dispensation is to convert the
world. There is no fixed rule for interpreting
the parables. If it be said that the leaven
here represents sin because it does so in
every other instance in the Bible, we get
ourselves into a difficult situation. The
same reasoning makes the uplifted serpent
in the wilderness represent the devil, for
the serpent typifies evil in every other in-

THE PURPOSE: TO SERVE 13
stance in the Bible. It is destructive to
the truth to carry typology too far. Jesua
was free and independent in the use of fig
ures of speech. He used whatever came to
hand that would best illustrate the truth.
If He were on earth to-day He would
probably use different illustrations, just
such as came to hand at the time.
The Jews were perfectly familiar with
the idea of a monarchy. They had been
subjects of a Kingdom, and hence they
thought they knew what it meant. But
Jesus was working out the principles of a
new Kingdom, that they knew nothing
about — "The Kingdom of Heaven." And
these simple parables are used to show how
this Kingdom is to be formed and adminis
tered. They are given to His disciples.
The world would not take them in, because
they are contrary to the world spirit.
The world spirit proceeds by force to
subjugate men. Jesus in establishing His
Kingdom proceeded upon the very op
posite principle, and this He did not want
the world at once to understand. His dis
ciples had to be taught first; hence we
read: "And the disciples came and said
unto Him, Why speakest thou unto them in
parables? He answered and said unto
them, Because it is given unto you to know

U THE KINGDOM PARABLES
the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven,
but to them it is not given. For whoso
ever hath, to them shall be given, and he
shall have more abundance; but whoso
ever hath not, from him shall be taken
away even that he hath. Therefore speak
I to them in parables ; because they seeing,
see not; and hearing they hear not, neither
do they understand. And in them is ful
filled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith,
By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not un
derstand; and seeing, ye shall see, and
shall not perceive. For this people's heart
is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of
hearing, and their eyes they have closed;
lest at any time they should see with their
eyes, and hear with their ears, and should
understand with their heart, and should
be converted and I should heal them. But
blessed are your eyes, for they see; and
your ears, for they hear."

II

THE PARABLES AND THE KINGDOM—
A DEFINITION
WHAT is a parable? It is certainly
not something that is used to
becloud the mind, to darken the
intellect, to shroud or hide the truth,
though a great many people seem to have
that idea. We are often told, "Be very
careful about attempting to explain a par
able; one is liable to give a misinterpre
tation of a parable." I grant you that we
should be very careful about expounding
any truth, but a parable is not given to
make the truth harder to get at ; a parable
is given to make the truth easier to under
stand. A parable is simply a story told
for the purpose of illustrating a truth ; of
illuminating it and making its meaning
clear. Our Lord in using parables selected
current things for the most part — things
occurring about Him. He seized upon them
and used them to set forth the truth that
He was endeavoring to teach, which could
not itself be easily understood. The re-
15

16 THE KINGDOM PARABLES
lation of a parable to the truth it explains
is very much like using a smoked glass to
see the sun. When the sun is going into
an eclipse we want to see it, but we cannot
look on the sun with the naked eye. No
man has ever yet had an eye sufficiently
strong to be able to look at the sun for any
length of time. The light is too dazzling.
So, in order that we may observe a partial
eclipse we have to have a smoked glass,
which softens the sun's rays and blends
the coloring so that the natural eye,
through this blending of colors and soft
ening of light, is enabled to perceive that
which is desired.
It is so with a parable. The truth ig
often so simple that the mind fails to grasp
it. It is too dazzling for the natural mind
unaided to get hold of it and take it in,
and so our Lord gives a parable which
blends the colors of the truth, softens the
intensity of its rays, and we are enabled to
behold that which is there. So when we
come to the consideration of a parable, let
ns understand that it is our Lord's way,
not of making the truth harder to under
stand, but of making it easier to compre
hend.

A DEFINITION 17,
All through the New Testament this
phrase is used, "The Kingdom of
Heaven," or "The Kingdom of God," or
"The Kingdom of Righteousness." What
do we understand by it? Let me say in
the outset that we are to understand that
the Lord is not referring to the church.
The church is nowhere presented as the
Kingdom of Heaven, or as the Kingdom of
God, or the Kingdom of Righteousness.
The church is not the Kingdom in any
sense. The church is within the Kingdom ;
the kingdom is far bigger than the church.
The Kingdom is this world with Jesus as
the reigning King. Nowhere does Jesus
speak of the church as the kingdom, and
nowhere does the Holy Spirit speak of
the church as the Kingdom. The church is
spoken of as "The body of Christ," the
"Bride of Christ," the "Habitation of
God"; but nowhere in the Scripture is the
church spoken of as the Kingdom. The
Kingdom, I say, is this world with Jesus
as its King. It is now in the process of
formation ; it is now gathering up its sub
jects; it is now getting ready for its per
manent organization under the reign and
rule of the personal King, who is Jesus
Christ, the Lord. The Kingdom is a per
fect social order with a perfect social or-

18 THE KINGDOM PARABLES
derer as its living, reigning head. We talk
to-day a great deal about sociology. It is
a great and important subject, one in
which the church is profoundly interested,
one with which humanity is profoundly
concerned, one with which the State and
the Nation are profoundly concerned.
But there will never be any such thing as
a perfect social order until we have a per
fect social orderer. We shall never get a
perfect government with an imperfect gov
ernor. A government with an imperfect
body of men at the head to legislate and
enforce what is legislated will never be a
perfect government.
The Abrangement of Parables
Another thing that we want to see is
the arrangement of the parables. They
can be arranged in two parts, the first
four in one group and the remaining three
in another group ; and they may be studied
in these groups. The first four were
spoken to the multitudes while Jesus sat
in the boat and the multitude stood upon
the shore. The remaining ones were
spoken after they had retired into more
private quarters, when the disciples them
selves had audience alone with the Lord.

A DEFINITION 19
Another and better way of grouping
them is in groups of two. For example,
"The Sower and the Tares," "The Mus
tard Seed and Leaven," "The Treasure
Hidden in the Field" and "The Pearl of
Great Price," leaving the parable of the
Dragnet to itself at the end, for a reason
I will show you when we come to con
sider it.
So much for the preliminary work that
we have concerning these parables. We
come now to consider the first of them.

m
THE SOWER
"Behold the sower went forth to sow; and as he
sowed some seeds fell by the wayside, and the
birds came and devoured them ; and others
fell upon the rocky places, where they had not much
earth ; and straightway they sprang up, because
they had no deepness of earth, and when the sun
was risen they were scorched; and because they
had no root they withered away. And others fell
among the thorns; and the thorns grew up and
choked them ; and others fell upon the good ground,
and yielded fruit, some a hundredfold, some sixty,
some thirty."
THERE are four points in the parable
to be noted. First, the sower ; sec
ond, the seed; third, the soil;
fourth, the harvest.
Who is this sower in the parable ? ' ' The
sower went out to sow." Please observe
the definite article here. Not "A sower,"
but "The sower." The Divine Personal
ity is referred to in this statement. In my
judgment the sower is none other than the
Holy Ghost. Most commentaries declare
that the sower is Jesus Christ, but I do
not believe it. He is the third person of
the Godhead, whose mission it is to "take
20

THE SOWER 21
of the things of Christ and reveal them
unto the world."
But let us see another word here — a
small word, but very significant. "The
sower went out to sow. ' ' The figure used
here is the figure of the oriental farmer.
In that country even now farmers do not
live out in the country sections as our
farmers do. They live in small towns and
villages and hamlets or even in the larger
cities, and they go out to their farms for
their work and come back to the town or
city where they live at night. They do this
for protection. And so the sower went
out to sow — out of the city to his farm.
There are two theories about it. I will
state them both, and let you conclude for
yourselves as to what it means here.
First, there is the theory that it has refer
ence to the coming of the Holy Ghost, that
when He came, He established the church
and began through it and by it sowing the
seed of the Kingdom.
Another theory, and I personally give
this theory more credence, is this : That
this going out refers to the leaving of the
Jews by the Holy Ghost because of their
rejection of Jesus. The Holy Ghost went
out from the Jewish people to the far Gen
tile nations of the world, that through

22 THE KINGDOM PARABLES
them He might propagate the Kingdom;
that He might sow the seed that would
afterwards ripen into the Kingdom of
Heaven. Without question, the Jews were
primarily selected to form the Kingdom.
It was in the purpose of God to make the
Jewish people a great Kingdom, with
Himself as King; and, had they accepted
Jesus when He came, they would to-day
have been in the Kingdom, and the King
dom would have been organized, and the
world of mankind would have been paying
tribute to the organized Kingdom of
Heaven, with Jesus as the reigning King
and Lord of all. Had the Jew filled his
place in the economy of God's purpose
and plan, the Kingdom would have been
established, Christ would have been the
reigning King and the world of mankind
would be moving along under the sway of
His scepter.
But they did not. And I believe that
this word "out" here refers to the Holy
Spirit going out from Israel, turning his
back upon Israel. How it must have
pained the heart of God to go out to an
other people to set up His Kingdom!

THE SOWER 23
The Seed
So much for the sower. Let us come for
a moment to consider the seed. I have just
said that I did not believe the sower was
the personal Jesus, but the third person
of the Godhead — the Holy Spirit.
Now what are we to understand the seed
to represent? Let me say, first of all, it
is not the Bible, important as that book is.
It is not civilization, nor culture, impor
tant as both these are; nor is it the
Church. The seed is the personal Jesus,
who is Himself "the word made flesh."
Please notice that the personal pronoun
is used here ; if the Bible had been referred
to, or if the gospel, or civilization had been
referred to, there would not have been
used here the personal pronoun "he." In
every instance where reference is made
in the explanation of our Lord of this par
able, it is with the personal pronoun "he"
all the way through, and never "it."
Christ is the seed, the Holy Ghost, the
sower. The one problem this world has
got to grapple with is not education, im
portant as that is ; it is not good govern
ment simply, important as that is; it
is not hospitals and reformatories, as thor
oughly interested in them as I am, and as

24 THE KINGDOM PARABLES
necessary as I believe them to be. These
things must be kept in their proper places
and must never be allowed to assume pro
portions that they are not intended to have.
The problem with which the world has to
grapple is Jesus. It is Jesus; not the
Bible, not the Church, not the school, not
the hospital, not the reformatory, not the
rescue home, not the charities. It is Jesus,
distinctly Jesus. To Him the world must
look, before Him the world must bow.
Now, let us take for a moment a glimpse
at the soil. What is the soil? They say
that the soil is the hearts of men; and
they say well. But let us not get lost in
the plurality of that word. Men and wo
men oftentimes fail to grasp truth, because
it is in the plural. What is the soil? It
is the heart of a man; here the Holy
Spirit sows His seed.
The Harvest
But our final consideration is the har
vest. Some of the seed fell by the wayside
and the birds of the air came and destroyed
it. Whose heart does that represent? That
is the indifferent heart; that is the heart
that paid no attention to the sowing. The

THE SOWER 25
sower came along with the seed Jesus.
That indifferent heart heard a sermon
about Him ; the Spirit knocked on the door
of that heart and was treated indifferently,
heedlessly, listlessly. Oh, what a great
proportion of the world that represents ! I
look out sometimes and see the vast con
course of unsaved people, and I ask,
"What is the cause of it? Have they any
thing against Jesus ? ' ' But it is not that ;
it is because they are so listless ; they have
not recognized that He is there.
"Others fell among the rocks, places
where they had not much earth; and
straightway they sprang up because they
had not much depth of earth, and when the
sun was risen they were scorched; and
because they had no root they withered
away." Whose heart is this? The pri
mary reference is to those who receive
Christ intellectually, but who have not
given Him the full assent of their heart,
and therefore have not been "born of the
Spirit." Theirs is but an intellectual re
ligion, and they cannot stand; they are
Christians because it is convenient, be
cause they felt that it was the proper thing,
but when the storm came, there was no root
and they withered. How many in this
world are like that! They have a mere

26 THE KINGDOM PARABLES
head religion ; because, forsooth, it is pop
ular to have religion in this country ; a re
ligion that merely gives intellectual peace.
It has never gone down to the root of the
matter; it has never given assent to the
reigning and the ruling of the principles
of the cross. They do not grow, they do
not get any stronger, and the sickly httle
plant in the thin soil finally withers and
dies. "Some fell among thorns, and the thorns
grew up and choked them." To whom is
reference made here? As I see it primar
ily, it is the man or the woman who has
given assent to Christ, but who has al
lowed the world to come with its thorns
pricking and stinging, with its persecu
tions and its hardships, with its organized
forces, and crowd them out; or to those
who have become infatuated with
worldliness to the extent that their time is
taken in that realm, with its social require
ments, with its obligations, with all that is
incident to the man who is prosperous in
the things of this world. He has been re
ligious, his inclinations were religious, but
he is infatuated with the world, and it has
blinded and obscured the religion that he
once had, and his life religiously speaking
amounts to naught. Oh, the sad picture

THE SOWER 27
of a man like that. Once he was a bright
and promising Christian, but his life has
become crowded; more and more his re
ligious duties are set aside, until finally
religion is pushed into a little corner. He
gets himself into the habit of thinking that
he simply must do this and that, until he
leaves no time at all for religion to hold
sway in his life, and it is dwarfed and
droops until its power has at last departed.
It is a sad thing to see some people get
ting rich. It is a new life. It is a new ex
perience. It is a new position, and it takes
the strongest care that one can exert not
to let it shrivel and dwarf their religion.
With people who have always had money
it is not so easily seen.
"Others fell," thank God, "on good
ground, and yielded fruit; some a hun
dredfold, some sixty, some thirty." Mark
you, the thing that he emphasizes is the
fruit, not the growing of the tree. Plenty
of us have grown good trees, but we have
not borne any fruit. Are you bearing
fruit? Is it one hundred? Is it sixty?
Is it thirty? What is the fruitage of the
life that we are living to-day? Remember
that the day of final reckoning is coming.
That man who was indifferent will be

28 THE KINGDOM PARABLES
asked, What did you do with Jesus? Why
did you turn a deaf ear to Him? That
man who simply gives an intellectual as
sent to Jesus will be asked, Why did you
not turn over your heart and your life to
Him? The man who allowed Jesus to be
crowded out after He had given him the
blessing of his life, that man is going to be
asked, "Why is it, after I blessed you in
your young manhood and you got up in
the world — at the time when you could
have been of most service you allowed
yourself to be crowded? Why did you al
low your religion to be dwarfed and your
interest for the church and the world and
for God and for heaven to diminish?"
That is going to be the man most crushed.
But thank God for the fruit bearers,
the men and the women, who, though they
grow in years and in usefulness in the
world's affairs, grow more and more in
their allegiance to the King.

IV
THE TARES
"The Kingdom is likened unto a man that sowed
good seed in his field ; but while men slept his enemy
came and sowed tares also among the wheat, and
went away. But when the blade sprang up and
brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also.
And the servant of the householder came forth and
said to him, Sir, didst thou not sow good seed in
thy field; whence then hath it tares? And he said
unto them, An enemy hath done this. And the ser
vants say unto them, Wilt thou then that we go
and gather them up? But he said unto them, nay,
lest haply when ye gather up the tares, ye root
up the wheat with them. Let both grow together
until the harvest ; and in the time of the harvest
I will say unto the reapers, Gather up first the tares,
and bind them in bundles to burn them ; but gather
the wheat into my barn." — Matt, xiii, 24-30.
BEFORE we begin the consideration
of these separate points we should
see our authority for calling this
the parable of the tares. By reference to
the thirty-sixth verse you will see this.
The disciples came to Jesus after He had
submitted this parable and asked Him for
the interpretation; and, mark you, Jesus
interpreted only two of these parables —
the first and the second. The remainder
29

30 THE KINGDOM PARABLES'
were left for us to interpret for ourselves.,1
But for these two He gave us a partial'
interpretation. When these disciples
came to ask for the interpretation they
asked for the interpretation of the par
able of the tares of the field, so that our
authority for calling this the parable of
the tares is the disciples themselves. As
Jesus started out upon the interpreta
tion, these four points presented them
selves to Him, and he expounded them. In
the first parable we saw that there was but
one sower, the Holy Ghost; that, after
Jesus returned, the Holy Ghost came and
came upon one distinct mission — to repre
sent Jesus. The mission of the Holy
Ghost from the time that He made His
advent on the day of Pentecost until the
present hour has been to set forth Jesus
Christ as the Son of God — the Saviour of
sinners. In this parable we find another sower
and another seed. Jesus is here, Himself,
the sower. In the first parable it was the
Holy Ghost who had come to offer Jesus
to the world, to hold Him up as the Sav
iour of the lost. That was His purpose.
Now, in this, Jesus, the seed sown by the
Holy Ghost, is Himself the sower; and
we shall see later on what character of

THE TARES 31
seed he sows. Jesus the Son of Man in
this parable is the sower, but He is not the
only sower ; there is another — the devil.
Now we will stop to see something of the
time and the manner of this sowing. You
will see that it is said that, after the Son of
Man had sowed this seed that the devil
immediately came and sowed tares. That
is to say, as Jesus came sowing His seed
the devil came lurking in His shadow,
sowing his seed. Then you will see too
that it is said of this sowing that the devil
sowed at night — "while they slumbered
and slept." Jesus sows His seed in the
daytime, in the broad open daytime; in
the full glare of the sun. He has nothing
to hide. The work of Jesus is a work of
broad daylight, because His work is a
work for the good of mankind, and that
which is for the good of mankind need not
be hid : so Jesus comes in the daytime and
sows His seed; with this sowing in the
daytime, comes Satan at night and sows his
seed. The work of Satan has always been
a work of darkness. The work of Satan
is to pull down, wreck and destroy man
kind. He has for his object destruction in
any way and every way that he can possi
bly do it. The devil is not wedded to any
method. The church is wedded to meth-

32 THE KINGDOM PARABLES
ods. Would to God we were not ! Would
to God that the time would come when we
should forget that we ever had traditional
methods to serve ! The devil is wedded to
nothing but the destruction of men; and
he is perfectly willing that men should
have their way — should do as they please ;
He is perfectly willing that men should
prosper ; that they should become rich and
be respectable if only in the end he may
serve his purpose and damn their im
mortal souls. The devil is not half so
much concerned about life as we are. The
one concern that he has of life is that he
may during life sow seed that will burn in
eternity with fire. That is the purpose of
the devil; it is to get man's immortal soul.
And so as Jesus comes, sowing his seed,
the devil comes sowing his seed. The
seed of Jesus is the salvation of the race.
The seed of the devil is the damnation of
the race, not so much for this life as for
the eternity that is to come.
Then again, I should like to have you
observe, for the moment, the seed. In the
first parable there was but one seed, and
that seed was Jesus. Here we have two
kinds of seed. First, there is that sown by
Jesus Christ; second, that sown by the

THE TARES 33
devil. The seed that Jesus is sowing is the
seed of redeemed humanity. It is the seed
into which he has incorporated or incar
nated Himself through the work of the
Spirit, as was brought out in the first par
able. Now, wherever, the Spirit sowed
seed in good soil and Jesus Christ became
incarnated in the human heart, that seed
is made ripe and ready for the sowing of
the Son of Man, as we find it in this para
ble. Jesus is sowing the seed of redeemed
humanity ; that seed is saved men and wo
men. No man is the seed of Jesus until
he has been redeemed, until the germ of
salvation has been placed in his soul; un
til Jesus has been incarnated in his heart;
He is not yet ready for the sowing of the
Son of man. But the moment that He is,
Jesus comes, as illustrated in this parable,
and takes the redeemed soul and sows it
abroad. Jesus takes redeemed humanity
and plants one here, another there, and
still another yonder; some in this land,
some in other lands; some in all lands —
the sowing of the Son of man.
And the sons of the evil one are his seed.
Wherever Jesus has gone sowing His
seed, the devil has gone sowing his. That
is to say, wherever Jesus has put a good
man, the devil has put a bad man by his

34 THE KINGDOM PARABLES
side; and we may always expect that this
will be so. Jesus knew it, and hence He
tells us that we must not be surprised when
we see it. We sometimes long to be in a
land where the devil is not doing his work,
but we shall never see that until the King
comes. Always, everywhere, wherever
Jesus plants the good seed, the devil plants
the bad. The man may not be bad in the
sense that the world calls a man bad, but
he bears a fruit that is poisonous to the
work of the good man Jesus plants.
This word tares ought properly to be
translated ' ' darnel. " It is a kind of weed
that grows up with the wheat in that coun
try where this parable was spoken ; and it
is so like wheat that you cannot tell the dif
ference until the blossom comes, which has
a peculiar poison that is blown about
over the wheat, destroying its fruitage.
Now this is what the devil is doing, and
he will do it until the King comes and puts
him under check. The seed which the evil
one plants is not by any means always the
heinous sins that we think of in this con
nection : perhaps it may be the seed of
respectability; perhaps it is a seed of
great culture and refinement ; but no mat
ter how cultured and refined, the life into
which Jesus has not been poured is the

THE TARES 35
seed of tht evil one. But we must not get
discouraged because of the plentitude of
this seed of the evil one; it must serve
simply to make us more faithful and
more careful — more concerned about the
fruitage of our lives and the aid we can
be to the Master in scattering His seed
throughout the world.
But what is this soil into which these two
species of seed are sown — good and
bad, righteous and unrighteous, saved and
unsaved. I call you to note an expression
which I think will throw great light upon
this question. "His field"; I would have
you underscore and write in capital letters
these words, "His field." The sower
sowed good seed in His field. That refers
to the field of Jesus. The field is the
world ; the world just as we have it. Now
into this world in which man lives these
two sowers, Jesus and the devil, are both
at work sowing seed; one sowing good
seed, and the other bad seed. My breth
ren, what does that suggest to you? It can
suggest but one thing and that is that this
field, into which the seeds are being de
posited, both the seeds of righteousness
and unrighteousness, this field is the prop
erty of Jesus Christ. He owns the field;

36 THE KINGDOM PARABLES
the world does not belong to the devil; the
devil is a usurper. He is trespassing upon
territory that does not belong to him.
This world belongs to Jesus, every whit of
it; not only man, but the entire cosmos,
the whole earth, with its mountains and
valleys, and its streams and its streamlets,
with its great rivers and seas, with its
deserts and its fertile fields, with its mines
and its mountains, with its treasures rich,
with its jewels and its gems; everything
that is in it, and on it, and around it, and
above it, belongs to Him and not a whit
belongs to the devil. It is His by right of
creation, of purchase, of supervision, of
blessing; this field, in very truth, is His.
And oh, what a suggestion there comes in
connection with the thought that whatever
you and I possess is by His permission.
He has provided it that we may use it.
And yet men act as if they were under ob
ligation to the devil and not to God. We
sometimes get weary and discouraged be
cause the world is so slow to recognize this
fact. But, my brethren, we need not get
discouraged: we shall never see it until
the King comes, until this dual sowing is
stopped, until the devil is checked and all
that assist him in sowing the seed of un
righteousness. Until then the world will

THE TARES 37
never see God in His rightful place — His
field. And then I call you to note what we have
already passed over, that the sowing of the
seed in His field by the devil was at the
time when the sons of the Kingdom slept.
There never would have been such prog
ress of Satan had it not been for the sleep
ing of the sons of the Kingdom. I am
talking about the man who is spirtually
asleep — the sleep of the church has been
the opportunity of the devil. It was while
the sons of the Kingdom slept that the
devil came and sowed his seed. Oh, my
brethren, will there ever come a time when
the church will wake up to realize its pos
sibilities, its opportunities, its gracious
privileges; when the church will have its
eyes opened and see this opportunity into
which she may enter and dethrone, as far
as possible, the devil and his work? Will
there come such a time? I was thinking,
the other day, of one of the opportunities
that the devil has got hold of by the sleep
ing of the church. I was thinking of the
failure of the church to realize her obliga
tions to care for the orphan children in this
country. Do you know who it was that
started the first orphanage in this country?
It was started by one who named no re-

38 THE KINGDOM PARABLES
ligion at all; fraternal orders followed
suit, then the state, and finally the church.
It has only been within recent years that
the church has undertaken this work. I
can remember the first Christian orphan
age established in the South; it was
started by the Baptists of my own native
State. The church slept; and while she
slept this great opportunity was seized
and was used as a means of holding back
and paralyzing the church, while it made
the other organizations popular.
Then I thought, too, of that long sleep
of the church with reference to the care of
the sick. The Roman Catholic Church had
its eyes opened many years ago, but the
Protestant world was long, long centuries
with eyes fast closed to this opportunity.
Why is it that the sons of the Kingdom,
with sense enough to run all sorts of enter
prises and all sorts of business ventures,
have kept their eyes shut to this great
open field and all other such fields so long,
and let the devil take them? "While the
sons of the Kingdom slept, the devil came
and sowed tares." The only trouble with
the church is sleepiness ! Oh, the oppor
tunities that we have had for so long; that
we have to-day, but may not have to-mor-

THE TARES 39
row; and yet we have gone on sleeping,
and the devil has slipped along and sowed
his tares, and all about us the poison is
effecting the wheat. "While the sons of
the Kingdom slept!" The enemy never
sleeps. I never heard of the devil going to
sleep in my life — not even in church.
"While the sons of the Kingdom slept,"
keeping their eyes shut, failing to see and
to appreciate the opportunities, failing to
think of the needs of the age; the devil
came and sowed tares.
My last point is concerning the harvest.
What about it? The disciples were very
much concerned about the harvest, and they
came and asked for an interpretation of
the parable that they might understand
about the harvest. The disciples were
mistaken, just as many a man is mistaken
about the teaching of this harvest. The
man to-day who thinks that the kingdom is
the church is made a pessimist by the in
terpretation of Jesus ; for Jesus said, "Let
both grow together until the harvest." If
the church is the Kingdom, then thatmeans
this: never discipline anybody in the
church, though one may be ever so wicked ;
let him stay on and serve the devil and do
as he pleases until the end. That is not

40 THE KINGDOM PARABLES
what He meant, because the church is not
the Kingdom. Here is what Jesus means,
as He so clearly explains. He means that
in this world where His Kingdom is being
established, where the devil is sowing seed
along by the side of His seed, we are not
to use force. Don't do what the Turks did
in Bulgaria — shoot men down because
they do not believe as you do. Don't force
men into your belief with the theory that
the end justifies the means ; that is not the
way to propagate the Kingdom. Let
them alone; do not bring force to bear
upon them, for the Kingdom of Jesus is
not a Kingdom of force. If you cannot
convert them, change them on the inside,
just let them stay until the end of the age,
when they will be divided: the good shall
be taken and shall be given a place in the
home of the blest; and the wicked, the
tares, shall be gathered up and thrust into
the fire.
I fancy it isn't going to be long before
He comes. As God is my witness, I wish
He would come to-day! Some of us have
been fighting and struggling and toiling
as best we could, and have had so many
tares to deal with that we just feel like we
wish He would come and take entire charge

THE TARES 41
of this field and keep Satan out ; but I do
not think it will be long before He comes.
"Heed now this message from your King,
Whose Word holds true to-day;
In each disciple's heart should ring,
"Love" — "bless" — "do good" — and
"pray".
Love with His love ; a heaven-born thing,
Which never knows decay ;
Unsullied as an angel's wing —
"Love", "bless", "do good", and
"pray".
Bless those around you, though the sting
Of sin in them has sway;
Though they should naught but curses
fling,
"Love", "bless", "do good", and
"pray".
Do good by deed, and words which wing
To weary hearts their way;
Go on till lips with gladness sing —
'Love", "bless", "do good,,' and

"i

"pray".

Pray till a tender love shall spring,
His Spirit's softening ray;

42 THE KINGDOM PARABLES

Such love as He alone can bring —
"Love", "bless", — "do good", and
"pray".
When silvery bells at evening ring,
And cheer us on the way ;
So may these words from Christ our
King—
' ' Love " — " bless " — "do good ' ' — and
"pray".

V
THE MUSTARD SEED

"The Kingdom of Heaven is like unto a grain of
mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his
field ; which 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." — Matt, xiii, 31,
32.

IN the second parable we had the sower,
Jesus the Son of Man; the seed, the
sons of the Kingdom; the soil, this
world in which we live, and the harvest,
the end of the age. Also the Jevil sowing
tares. Now in this parable we find the same
four points presenting themselves, the
sower, the seed, the soil, and the harvest.
The Sower here is still Jesus the Son of
Man ; the seed, the sons of the Kingdom ;
the soil is this world; the harvest is still
the end of the age. Matthew seems to in
dicate that this parable, the parable of the
mustard seed, was given immediately after
the first two ; that is to say, Jesus finished
43

44 THE KINGDOM PARABLES
the second parable and went immediately
into the third. But if we read Luke 's ac
count it would seem that this parable was
not given immediately after the other two,
but that it was given while Jesus was in the
synagogue on the Sabbath day. On that
occasion He healed a woman who had been
sick for eighteen years, and had baffled the
skill of physicians, and because He healed
her there was complaint lodged against
Him by the ruler of the synagogue, who
charged that He had desecrated the Sab
bath day and also desecrated the syna
gogue, the house of God. A_nd you are
familiar with the severe rebuke that Jesus
gave to this ruler of the synagogue, and
how this rebuke put him and his confeder
ates to shame. Immediately, according to
Luke's rendering of these parables, Jesus
submitted this parable of the mustard seed.
Now, I think that it is very reasonable to
suppose that both Matthew and Luke were
right in regard to time. I think Mat
thew states it exactly as it occurred; that
in the first instance Jesus did submit all
these parables, one right after the other,
and in Luke's account it is stated exactly
as it occurred, and Jesus submitted it in
the synagogue. It is only reasonable to
suppose that Jesus often repeated these

THE MUSTARD SEED 45
parables, illustrating His teachings con
cerning the Kingdom.
But what is the significance of the par
able of the mustard seed? In order to see
it, we shall have to review the first two,
and then to look at the parable which fol
lows. In the first parable we have the Holy
Ghost, the Sower. He is come to sow the
seed, Jesus Christ. In the second parable,
the seed, Jesus, has been sown and has
sprung up in the hearts and lives of men
and women, and He Himself becomes the
60wer of the seed of regenerated mankind.
So that we have here set forth in the first
two parables the basic elements of the
Kingdom of Heaven. We have the founda
tion work done. Now, if we go forward
and see the parable of the leaven we shall
see that these two parables are given to
set forth the method of the development of
the Kingdom. The parable of the mustard
seed sets forth the method of the spread of
the Kingdom externally; the parable of
the leaven gives us the internal develop
ment. "The Kingdom of Heaven is likened
unto a grain of mustard seed." A definite
grain of mustard seed, which a certain man

46 THE KINGDOM PARABLES
took and sowed in his field and it sprang
up and became a tree so large that its
branches formed a shelter for the birds of
the air. What is the significance of this
parable? It is, as I have just said, to set
forth the method of the external develop
ment of the Kingdom. Let it be remem
bered that Jesus was speaking this parable
in Palestine ; in a country where a mustard
plant is a very different plant from what
the mustard plant is with us. It is larger ;
it becomes a huge herb in the field with
branches and trunk. So Jesus is not using
an abnormal or in any way overdrawn fig
ure of speech. Doubtless when He first
spoke this parable, His eyes rested upon
such a plant, and he saw the birds as they
flitted among its branches.
Let us see the likeness between the mus
tard seed and the Kingdom of Heaven as
we have it set forth. First, this likeness is
seen in the smallness of its beginning. The
mustard seed is among the smallest of
seeds ; and so was the Kingdom of Heaven
in its beginning. As you will remember, it
began with one man. I believe that this
mustard seed, this single mustard seed,
which was the beginning of the Kingdom
of Heaven on earth, was the Apostle Peter.
You remember the instance when Jesus

THE MUSTARD SEED 47
said to His disciples, "Whom do men say
that I am," and they said, "Some Elias,
some Moses, some Jeremias, or one of the
prophets." Then said Jesus, "Whom say
ye that I am?" That question of Jesus
was addressed to the entire number of His
disciples, but there was one man that made
the confession. Any one of them might
have been in the place of Peter. But Peter
was the one ready with an answer, ' ' Thou
art the Christ, the Son of God." What
follows? Immediately after Peter spoke
Jesus spoke a most significant word con
cerning the Kingdom: "Behold, thou
art Peter, and upon this rock will
I build my church — my spiritual com
munity ; ' ' not the kingdom, but the spiritual
community embraced within the Kingdom.
"Upon this rock, the rock of your
confession, I will build my church,
my spiritual community, the great
world church, the great spiritual brother
hood. And the gates of Hades shall not
prevail against it ; and I will give unto the
keys of the kingdom." Here is a most sig
nificant and at the same time the most mis
understood statement that Jesus ever
made. Do not misread what Jesus said.
Do not be afraid you will become a Roman
Catholic if you stick to the literal words of

48 THE KINGDOM PARABLES
Jesus ; stick to them, if you do become a
Roman Catholic. Rome thus interprets it :
"And I will give unto thee the keys of the
church" ; but it is not so stated. What He
said was this: "I will give unto thee the
keys of the Kingdom. ' ' I, for one, believe
that Jesus literally meant what He said.
Peter being the first to answer the ques
tion, Peter being the first to confess Him,
Jesus handed to Him the keys of the King
dom of Heaven. And when do we find
these keys brought into service? When
do we find them unlocking the door of the
Kingdom of Heaven ? Just step over a few
days to the day of Pentecost, when the
Kingdom was formally launched; we say
that the church was formed ; that was the
day of the launching of the Kingdom of
Heaven, before the church was born; the
church was born after men became sub
jects of the Kingdom. It was formed by
the men, who, because they had become
subjects of the King were ready for organ
ization. The unlocking of the Kingdom of
Heaven was done by Peter on the day of
Pentecost. In the preaching of that ser
mon under the power of the Holy Ghost
-Bg4aiL -turned the keys that unlocked the
Km^lsS^tfiHeaven and let the sons of

THE MUSTARD SEED 49
men from all parts of the earth for all time
enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.
Then again, the mustard seed is an apt
illustration of the Kingdom in the rapidity
of its growth. There is no plant, perhaps,
more rapid in its development than the
mustard. So it is with the Kingdom. We
sometimes think of the slow progress of the
Kingdom of Heaven ; and it does look slow
when we see how small a part of this world
the Kingdom of Heaven has ever been in
troduced into. But, my brethren, when we
see the character of the Kingdom and the
purpose of the Kingdom, and consider that
in its formation it was never contemplated
that all humanity should be subjected to
the King until His coming, we can better
understand. When we take this view of it
we are not so pessimistic with reference to
the progress of the Kingdom of Heaven.
After all, do you know any religion, any
system of teaching, any philosophy, any
government that has made the progress in
the history of the world that the Kingdom
of Heaven has made? Is there anything
like it? Look at it on the day of Pentecost
in its simple beginning. See the one seed,
Peter, the mouth-piece of heaven, proclaim
ing the first message of the Kingdom of

50 THE KINGDOM PARABLES
Heaven under the inspiration and the
power of the Holy Ghost. See under the
administration of the apostles themselves
the rapidity of its growth from this single
seed. See in the early centuries of the
church how even at the fourth century this
single seed had produced such a plant as
that it had become under the reign of Con-
stantine the one great state religion. Its
very power, its very size, its very progress
became its great weakness, so that it had a
period of decline. I am not speaking of it
so much in its work of individual redemp
tion ; I am speaking of it in its great influ
ence, in its great external bearing. See it
as it appears in the history of the world.
No section of the world that has not known
of the Kingdom of Heaven has had the
progress of that section where the King
dom of Heaven has been preached. No
people on earth have had such progress
as those people where that opportunity has
been afforded. Every great invention, every
great line of progress that we to-day, as a
civilized world are enjoying, is the fruit
age of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Again, the mustard seed has in itself
certain antidotal and remedial qualities
that no other agent possesses. It is a fact
that the mustard plant is an antidote to

THE MUSTARD SEED 51
certain poisons that no other plant affords.
The mustard is used in its various forms as
a remedial agent in all parts of the world,
civilized and uncivilized as well. So is the
Kingdom of Heaven. It is antidotal in its
character. It is remedial in its operations.
No community can grow godlessness and
evil so rapidly in the presence of the Sons
of the Kingdom. There is something in
the sons of the Kingdom that makes them
antidotal to sin, to iniquity. There is some
thing in us as sons of the Kingdom that
makes it impossible for sin to flourish in
our presence, though we may not speak a
word of condemnation.
Years ago I had the privilege of visiting
Bella Cook, a woman who for years and
years was bed-ridden, on account of the se
verest form of inflammatory rheumatism.
Every muscle in her body practically was
drawn out of shape ; never a moment when
she was awake was she free from pain,
and yet for thirty-five years Bella Cook lay
there without a complaint — a daughter of
the Kingdom. She used to live in a section
of the city that was very notorious for evil.
Somebody said to her, "Are you going to
stay here in the midst of this awful corrup
tion, with these wicked characters throng
ing about your door? Aren't you afraid

52 THE KINGDOM PARABLES
that there will some harm come to you,
and isn't it very distasteful to hear the
tramp of such impure feet ; to see through
your window, as you lie upon your bed, the
march of such an army of sinners as you
see here?" But Bella Cook said, "No, I
am not afraid; I have something within
which gives me peace and courage"; and
she kept on living there. One after an
other of these characters began to leave,
to move on, until long before Bella Cook
died, even when I paid her that last visit,
the whole section had been deserted by
those devotees of sin ; there was not a pub
lic vice within quite a radius of her house.
She lived as a daughter of the King ; she
served as best she could under the circum
stances ; and there, shining as a light, pene
trating the dense darkness of that com
munity, her life was an antidote to sin and
a remedy for defilement. Don't come talk
ing to me about being ready to go to Africa
to live in the jungles, to risk your life day
by day, until you show your willingness to
live happily and contentedly in such an
atmosphere at home, where you may be of
service, uplifting and developing those
around you. My brethren, the time has
come, and I feel it more and more, when we
who are the Sons of the Kingdom, the sub-

THE MUSTARD SEED 53
jects of the King should realize our anti
dotal and remedial character ; we must be
come willing to lay aside some of our com
forts, and shine our light in places of
dense darkness at home as well as in the
foreign field.
Finally, I want to say that the similarity
of the mustard plant to the Kingdom of
Heaven is in the use made of its branches.
In the case of the mustard plant the birds
of the air rested among its branches ; birds
of all kinds that lived in that community.
And so it is with the Kingdom; the King
dom of Heaven is the resort for all classes
of men when they find out its character.
There is that large class, and I would that
it were larger, the men and the women who
flee to its branches for instruction, for light
and for life in the day when they are con
victed of their unsaved condition. They
come that they may have the way of salva
tion pointed out to them by the Sons of the
Kingdom. Here they come flocking to us,
hiding within the branches of our influence
and our life.
Then there is that other great crowd that
is flocking to the branches of the Kingdom,
desiring such succor as a poor, throbbing,
broken, discouraged heart alone knows how

54 THE KINGDOM PARABLES
to appreciate. Things have gone wrong.
Life seems to be a failure ; hope has van
ished, and they come, flocking to the
branches of the mustard plant ; they want
sympathy ; they want instruction and help ;
they want that which they have become
persuaded is theirs when they become
Sons of the Kingdom.
Then there is that other large army; I
would that it were not so large — men and
women who are flocking for business rea
sons, with a hope that they may obtain a
bit of the loaves and fishes that such a
federation may possibly bring to them.
Some are desirous of the loaves and fishes
of society and congenial association. Some
are after the loaves and fishes of financial
interests. I have seen illustrations of both
of them by the thousands. I have in mind
a man who came to this very city. I knew
him before he came here. He never knew
what the word society meant in his own
town. He was perfectly content in his old
home to live the plain, the honest, the toil
ing, the godly man's life. When he came
to this city, he was told that he ought to
join a certain church, for the reason that
he would find a higher and better social
atmosphere in which his family could
move; and though I had known him for

THE MUSTARD SEED 55
a long time, he said to me, "You cannot
expect me to join your church; I will be
your sympathizer and friend, but I can
not join your church."
Let us remember that Jesus Himself, the
King, is watching over the sons of the
Kingdom while the Kingdom is being pre
pared in the hearts of men. He is as much
watching over the plant as it grows, as if
He were here in person. He sees who
comes to the shelter of the tree. He sees
the motive. He sees the dynamic that
propels them, whether it is selfish and sor
did, or whether it is Christlike. He sees
and He knows. And when the winds of
persecution come along and the branches
are shaken, then we, too, shall see. Men
and women who have more interest in the
gratification of their personal business re
lations than they have in the Kingdom
when the testing time comes will not stay.
And when He comes, only those who have
remained true, who have endured the
winds, will under Him take control of the
Kingdom.

YI
THE LEAVEN
"The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which
a woman took and hid in three measures of meal,
till the whole was leavened." — Matt, xiii, 33.
MANY regard this as the most dif
ficult of these parables. There
are two views of its interpreta
tion generally accepted, and I shall state
them both to you, and then endeavor to
show you how I interpret it. In the first
place there are those who regard this par
able as intending to set forth the growth of
the church, and the leaven, therefore, is
regarded as the gospel. Then there is that
class, not so large as the first, who hold
that the parable is intended to set forth
the obstacles in the way of the Kingdom,
and that the leaven represents not the
gospel, but sin.
I do not accept the first interpretation,
because I do not believe that the Kingdom
of Heaven is the church. I have stated
this so frequently that I feel it is scarcely
56

THE LEAVEN 57
worth while to call attention to it again.
Those who hold it claim that it is intended
to teach that the church, in this dispensa
tion, is to conquer the whole world and sub
jugate man in all relations of life to the
will of God, when, as a matter of
fact, the teaching of Jesus is that,
in this dispensation neither the church
nor the Kingdom is to win this
world. In Matthew's gospel, 24th
chapter, we have Jesus ' plain words : "As
it was in the days of Noah, so shall also the
coming of the Son of Man be: For as in
the days that were before the flood, they
were eating and drinking, marrying and
giving in marriage until the day that Noah
entered into the ark, and knew not until
the flood came and took them all away, so
shall also the coming of the Son of Man be.
Then shall two be in the field; the one
shall be taken and the other left. Two
women shall be grinding at the mill; the
one shall be taken and the other shall be
left. Watch, therefore, for ye know not
at what hour your Lord cometh." These
are the words of Jesus, and if they teach
anything at all, they teach that at His sec
ond coming the world will be practically
as we have it to-day. Some will be saved
and others will be lost; some will be taken

58 THE KINGDOM PARABLES
and some will be left. So that view of
this parable that represents the church as
an all-conquering force before our Lord
returns is a view that is in direct antag
onism to what Jesus Christ Himself taught.
With reference to the second view, I
want to say this : I can no more accept it
than I can the first. I don 't believe that the
parable is intended to set forth the nature
of the obstacles that the Kingdom has to
encounter, and most certainly do I not
believe that the leaven is intended to repre
sent sin in this connection. Jesus said,
"The Kingdom of Heaven" — not the King
dom of Satan — "The Kingdom of Heaven
is like unto leaven which a woman took
and hid in three measures of meal, till the
whole was leavened." If leaven is to rep
resent sin, then our Lord made a mistake
in the figure that He used, for He says
that the Kingdom of Heaven is like unto
leaven. I am aware of the fact that in
other parts of the Bible leaven is used to
represent sin, but our Lord is not wedded
to any figure. The serpent is also used to
represent Satan, and yet no one would say
that it represented him when uplifted in
the wilderness.
Jesus was trying to show them some*

THE LEAVEN 59
thing of the nature and the character of
the progress of the Kingdom within. As
He spoke, possibly He saw some women
making up dough, taking the leaven, put
ting it inside the meal, and setting it aside
for the leavening process to complete it
self ; and He referred to it as an illustra
tion of the method and the manner of the
progress of His Kingdom which first was
individual and internal. He used an ex
perience with which He was intimately ac
quainted. Our Lord had no doubt aided His mother
in preparing many a loaf of bread. The
women of those days ground the corn,
turned the stones themselves, and then pre
pared the food. And I think our Lord,
the Model Son, the Model Child, never sat
by and saw His mother turning those heavy
stones without giving a helping hand ; and
so He was perfectly familiar with the de
tails of that whole process. He was refer
ring back, in the illustration, to His ex
perience to set forth the thing that He was
trying to teach. You will also see how this
view is in perfect harmony with the entire
parabolic teaching concerning the Kingdom
of Heaven. In our last parable we saw
the method of the external growth of the
Kingdom. To-day we have the internal

60 THE KINGDOM PARABLES
growth of the Kingdom. Jesus is trying
to show that the Kingdom is not merely
an external matter — something tangible,
something that we can see and feel, but
that it is something deeper than that. This
parable is simply intended to show how
the Kingdom of Heaven works internally
as well as externally. It has nothing what
ever to do with the matter of externals
except as externals are the natural outcome
of internal conditions.
You find in it the four points which cor
respond to the four points presented in the
other parables. Corresponding with the
sower is the woman who takes the leaven
and puts it in the meal. In my judgment
this woman represents the Holy Spirit.
Then there is the leaven, corresponding
with the seed, in my judgment representing
the Saviour of men. Then there is the
meal — the soil — representing not this
world of men and women, but representing
the individual human heart. Then, cor
responding with the harvest, there is the
consummation of the process, the time
when the full leavening process of the hu
man heart has been completed. Remember,
we are not dealing with externals : we have
here a parable dealing with individuals,

THE LEAVEN 61
and the meal is used to represent nothing
more nor less than the human heart, into
which the Holy Spirit, represented by the
woman with the leaven, enters.
There has been a good deal said about
the three measures of meal and what they
represent. Why did our Lord say the
Kingdom of Heaven is like unto leaven
which a woman took and hid in three meas
ures of meal? Some have said that this is
intended to represent the three then known
continents, Europe, Asia and Africa. But
I do not believe it is so. I think that these
three measures of meal were mtended to
represent the trinity of man — the soul, the
spirit, and the body. Again let me remind
you that this is a parable of individualism
and is dealing distinctively with the ques
tion of the individual, and his heart is the
soil in which this work is to be done, in
which the leavening process is to be carried
to completion.
In what respect, therefore, with this view
of it, do we find the leaven representing
the Kingdom of Heaven? In the first
place, it is true in that the leaven does its
work internally and hidden from the view
of man. No man can see the leavening
process as it operates. The leaven is taken
and placed inside the lump of dough, inside

62 THE KINGDOM PARABLES
the meal, and there its work is done, hidden
from view ; it is a work that goes on down
deep below where the human eye can see its
operations. It is hidden, and so is the
Kingdom of Heaven in the heart of man.
The Kingdom of Heaven, operating in the
human heart, is a hidden process. No eye
can see it, no hand can feel it ; it is a hid
den, internal working. And, my brethren,
the more rigidly we insist upon the fact
that the Kingdom of Heaven is a hidden
process, working in the heart of man, the
more in keeping we shall find ourselves
with the entire spirit of the gospel. I have
in my past life emphasized greatly the
need of reforms; and I would still insist
upon them; that is better than nothing, but
reformation is not salvation; reformation
is only surface deep. What we want is first
of all the internal leavening of the heart,
which embraces the whole trinity of man.
When the heart is leavened the mind is
leavened, and the body is leavened also.
I remember when I first began to preach
I was very fond of reading Henry Ward
Beecher. For variety of illustration, per
haps, no man has ever surpassed him. His
illustrations were not always correct; but
he was great, he was tremendous in his
descriptive powers. In those early days I

THE LEAVEN 63
remember reading an illustration of his in
tended to set forth two great fundamental
doctrines, one the fall of man and the other
his regeneration. He said, "Here is a pic
ture hanging on the wall. It is without a
flaw. The framework is perfect and at first
the picture is perfect. That picture repre
sents Adam, our first parent, made in the
image of God, perfect physically and spir
itually, and as time passes by, dust and
dirt accumulate upon the face of the pic
ture; the canvas becomes blurred and
smoky; the image itself becomes marred;
finally it is so far obliterated by dust and
dirt that you cannot tell what is repre
sented. That," says Beecher, "represents
the fall of man in the Garden of Eden.
Sin accumulated upon his heart and upon
his life until that originally perfect picture
that he had at the beginning is destroyed.
So far, so good." Then he proceeds to il
lustrate regeneration and faith. He says,
"The housekeeper comes and takes that
picture down, all marred and blurred, and
takes some soap and a rag and washes all
the grease and dirt off of it and polishes
up the framework, and there is restored
the original, the perfect picture. That is
regeneration." That is not regeneration,
and it is at that very line of teaching that

64 THE KINGDOM PARABLES
our Lord is striking a blow in this parable.
Regeneration, if it is no more than that,
would be a mere external washing up of a
man's moral life. Regeneration, however,
is a process that goes farther than that,
deeper than that. It is the housekeeper
taking down that picture and not washing
it off, but cutting it out and destroying
it and putting in that framework another
picture; not the picture of the original
Adam, but something more than Adam,
something more than Adam could ever be —
a picture of our risen Lord Jesus Christ.
That is the process of regeneration, and
that is the work upon which the Kingdom
of Heaven must be founded.
Again, you will see that this leaven rep
resents the Kingdom in its disintegrating
and diffusionary character. When you
first put the leaven into the lump, it be
gins at once, under careful conditions, to
disintegrate, to break itself into fragments ;
then these fragments into still finer frag
ments, and so on, until it becomes a gas
and finds its way into every particle of the
meal. There is not a single atom that does
not feel the disintegrating process that is
going on down deep beneath where the eye
cannot see. It is the Kingdom of Heaven

THE LEAVEN 65
in the human heart. The leaven repre
sents Jesus Christ enthroned in a man's
heart. What does He do? He diffuses
Himself into every part and particle of a
man's life and conduct, into his thought,
into the region of his brain, into the region
of his intellect. My brethren, a man in
whose heart Jesus has been enthroned as
reigning Lord sees things differently from
what he saw them before. He under
stands differently; his intellect becomes
sharper toward spiritual things ; his men
tal perception of spiritual things becomes
stronger. He is made to understand and
fathom that which hitherto was beyond his
power to understand and fathom, diffusing
Himself into the very region of a man's
brain, framing his thought life as well as
his conduct. I am sure that we have not
been interested enough in the glorious
possibilities of having our vision enlarged
and our mental perception quickened. I
am sure that Jesus has not been given the
important place and purpose for which He
would come in and take possession of our
hearts and lives. Not only does He diffuse
Himself throughout the region of the heart
and the region of the life, but every fiber
of the real surrendered Christian becomea
a part of the diffusionary work of Jesus

66 THE KINGDOM PARABLES
Christ. We are just coming, in these days,
to realize the fact that our Lord is not sim
ply the Lord of our heart, but that He is
the Lord of our head; He is the Lord of
the body; He proposes to quicken these
mortal bodies. Jesus Christ, the leaven,
placed by the Holy Spirit in the human
heart, begins at once, if He is given the
proper atmosphere, the proper right, the
proper sway, to diffuse Himself into every
part and parcel of a man's being, until hia
whole life feels the presence, the power of
the inward diffusion of divine grace. His
social life, His business life, His political
life, all are penetrated by it.
The Kingdom of Heaven is like unto
leaven in the silent manner of its work.
Leaven does not make any fuss about its
work; there are no explosions; it rings
no bells, blows no trumpets. It does its
work quietly, without ostentation; slowly
but surely it proceeds. When once Jesus,
by the Holy Ghost, has been incorporated
into your life, the work begins. Speaking
for myself, I cannot feel easy in the
presence of this noisy, fussy religion. It
may suit some people, but somehow it fails
to satisfy me. Less and less do I find my
self in sympathy with the man who is
ever boasting about his spiritual achieve-

THE LEAVEN 67
ments. It is contrary to the teaching
concerning the Kingdom. This leaven,
Christ in the heart, is a quiet, unostenta
tious work, going steadily and silently
ahead, reaching farther and farther until
the whole lump is leavened and a man's
life is conformed to the will of his Father.
That is the process of the Christian life;
that is the process of the Kingdom of
Heaven in a human heart. Luke says,
"The Kingdom of Heaven is within you."
Jesus, in that instance, was referring to
the exact lesson that He was endeavoring
to teach in this parable, that it is an inter
nal matter; it is both internal and exter
nal, as illustrated by this parable and the
one preceding.
Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like
heaven in the certainty of its final accom
plishment. Just put the leaven in, give it
the proper attention, the proper atmos
phere, and the process will be completed in
due time. Just let it do its work. What
we want to do if we want the leavening
process to go ahead is to see to it that the
proper conditions are maintained. So ia
the Kingdom of Heaven. So is Jesus
Christ, when once He becomes Lord and
Master. The leavening process begins ; it
is our business to see to it that He has

68 THE KINGDOM PARABLES
the proper atmosphere; that there is the
warmth of prayer and the moisture of the
Spirit's presence as we seek Him and en
deavor to fall in line; that our spiritual
natures are sufficiently warm and con
formed to the will of God : then the leaven
ing process silently and slowly proceeds,
unseen, except in its great consummation.
Have you read that book, "Down in
Water Street, "by Sam Hadley, late super
intendent of the Jerry McAuley Mission in
New York? It is simply told, and yet it is
a masterful presentation of the method of
the work of the Holy Spirit in conforming
the lives and conduct of men and wo
men to the standard of Heaven. In that
book there are fifty pictures perhaps, pic
tures of men and women, of good address.
Who are they? They look to be the bank
ers and lawyers, doctors, and preachers of
that section ; and, indeed, some of them are.
Some are lawyers, some doctors, a few
preachers, many merchants. Who are they
and whence came they? They are men and
women who were, a few years ago, the river
pirates, thieves and thugs, drunkards, and
gamblers, opium fiends, etc., who wandered
into the Jerry McAuley Mission, stagger
ing, some of them stupefied by opium, but
who became there conscious of their sin

THE LEAVEN 69
and shame. Some of them came in for shel
ter; some came for a bowl of soup; per
haps they came for a kind word. That is
who they were, and as they staggered in,
they met the Son of Man. They received
Him into their hearts, though the soil was
vile and vulgar. The result was that He
began to do His work, perhaps first reach
ing out to master the appetite that had
damned them, controlling the natures that
wrecked them ; then out into other branches
of their lives, out and on, penetrating
every particle of their being until at last
they are ripened characters, fit for the
service of the Master.
But let me say one other word: the
meal had to be prepared. They took a
lump of yesterday's meal, put it into the
freshly prepared meal, then placed it aside,
under proper conditions, until the leaven
ing process was complete. The dry meal
would not do. It had to be moistened,
worked; preparation had to be made be
fore it was in fit condition to receive the
leaven. So is the Kingdom of Heaven in
the human heart. There is all the power
needed in Jesus Christ. In Him is all
power in heaven and earth; having all
power, He can do the work of conforming

70 THE KINGDOM PARABLES
a human heart to the will of God. But un
less we prepare for Him and co-operate
with Him in the work, it cannot be done.
The man who does nothing but sit down
and says, "Jesus is my Lord and Master,
and I wait for Him to do the work," will
never get the result. The unsaved man
who says, "I realize all this truth in Jesus
and wait for Him to do His work in my
life," will never get it done. He first is
prepared by accepting Jesus, and then be
gins to conform his life to the requirements
that Jesus makes.
Just a word about the culmination. Jesus
is not referring to the world here, for Hia
parable does not touch the world : hence it
does not teach that the world is to be
leavened ; it does not teach, therefore, that
the world is to be saved in this dispensa
tion. It has reference to the individual,
the individual whose heart has been pene
trated and whose life has the working of
the leaven. Those who are not thus pre
pared will know nothing of the rapture of
the coming of the Son of Man. How sig
nificant is this parable! How deep it is;
how tremendous its sweep ! How the world
needs to comprehend it! We are talking
much about the redemption of society. We
are talking about the salvation of the

THE LEAVEN 71
world, but let me say to you that there will
never be any redemption of society save
as society is redeemed one by, one.

VII
THE HIDDEN TREASURE
"Again the kingdom of heaven is like unto treas
ure hid in a field ; the which when a man hath found,
he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all
that he hath, and buyeth that field." — Matt, xiii, 44.
THE four parables we have studied
were submitted by Jesus to the
multitude. In that multitude were
men and women of all grades, characters,
and temperaments. The last three, upon
the study of which we are entering now,
were submitted by Jesus to the disciples
apart from the multitude. When Jesus
finished speaking to the multitude, giving
them the first four parables, He returned
into a house alone with His disciples, and
gave to them a partial interpretation of
these parables. The meaning of the par
ables was so evident that the people were
able to interpret them for the most part.
But when they were apart His disciples
asked Him concerning one of these para
bles, the parable of the tares, and Jesus
went a bit farther into the interpretation
of it, and then He proceeded to give them,
72

THE HIDDEN TREASURE 73
in this quiet family gathering, these other
three : the parable of the hidden treasure,
the pearl of great price and the dragnet.
There is a very significant reason in my
mind why Jesus waited until He got His
disciples apart from the crowd to give
them these last three parables. I think it
was because in the first instance, when He
was dealing with the multitude, He was
submitting elementary principles, princi
ples so elementary that anybody could in
terpret them in a general sense. In the re
maining three, Jesus is dealing with some
fundamental questions ; they are questions
that cannot be properly taught to a crowd.
There are some things that the crowd can
not take in ; and he is a wise preacher who
can properly divide men and women and
know something of the opportunity that
presents itself to him. A man is wasting
his time who is attempting to talk funda
mental principles of the Christian life to
the man who has never been born again.
What we want to do is to follow the Mas
ter's plan; when we are dealing with ele
mentary principles we can deal with the
crowd. When we are dealing with the prin
ciples that are fundamental, then we are
to deal with that select band of disciples
who are prepared for the stronger meat.

74 THE KINGDOM PARABLES
"The Kingdom of Heaven is like rich
treasure hid in a field; the which when a
man hath found, he hideth, and for joy
thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath,
and buyeth that field." I want you to
catch the word "buyeth that field"; the
field in which the treasure has been found,
in which the treasure has been hid. Now,
what is the significance of this parable?
One of the interpretations is that the King
dom of Heaven is the church. The other
is the less popular interpretation held by
those who do not regard the Kingdom of
Heaven as the church, but as this world
with men and women being prepared by
our Lord for the time of His return when
He is to reign over this earth.
The first of these interpretations, the
more popular one, I give you first — though
let me say that I do not in any sense
hold to it. It is this : that the treasure
hidden in the field and then found is the
salvation of Jesus Christ; it is grace ac
cepted and applied to the human heart,
and that the man who finds this treasure,
salvation, and hides it, and then goes off
and sells all that he has and comes back
and buys it, is the sinner seeking salva
tion and obtaining it.
I do not hold in the slightest to that in-

THE HIDDEN TREASURE 75
terpretation, although it is the one held
by the vast majority of Christian people.
I cannot accept it, first of all, because if
the hidden treasure is salvation, and if a
man has to find it and hide it and go and
sell all that he has and buy it, then we
have salvation presented to us as the result
of the action on the part of man ; we have
salvation by works. A salvation that can
be bought, a salvation of character, with
out atonement, without sacrifice, is not the
salvation of the New Testament. If that
interpretation be true, then the monasti-
cism of the Roman Catholic Church is cor
rect; then salvation is obtained by self-
denial, by penance, and the old monks who
shave one side of their heads and lie about
in the monasteries are correct, and that
is the form of life we ought all to adopt.
But we all know that this is not the sal
vation of the New Testament. We know
that no man can buy salvation. It is dis
tinctly presented to us without money and
without price. If somebody says at this
juncture, "What of the rich young ruler
to whom Jesus said, ' One thing thou lack-
est; go sell what thou hast and give to
the poor and thou shalt have treasure in
heaven.' " My answer is, first, a question,
"What about the first thing Jesus said to

76 THE KINGDOM PARABLES
that rich young ruler?" The first thing
was, "Why callest thou me good? There
is none good save God." "Do you call
me good with that understanding? If so,
then you accept my deity, and if you accept
my deity then you are prepared to deal
with the question of life ethics," and He
then discourses with the young man con
cerning the ethical side of the Christian
life; but in no sense does Jesus teach to
any people or at any time that a man can
buy grace or salvation of God, whether it
be the price of his own bodily suffering or
the price of dollars and cents.
Jesus' answer to the young ruler, "Go
sell what thou hast, ' ' was a mere test. He
had professed Jesus as "Good Master,"
and this would test his profession.
Now, the other interpretation, and the
one which I hold, is this : The hidden
treasure is Israel, the Jew, and the One
who finds this treasure is Jesus Christ
Himself, and the price that He pays is His
death on the cross, giving up all that He
had. The field that was purchased is the
field of humanity, in which the Jew him
self is only a factor. Let us see for a mo
ment how this teaching agrees with the
teaching of Scripture concerning Israel.

THE HIDDEN TREASURE 77
Israel is God's treasure. He so speaks of
that nation. David in the 135th Psalm,
fourth verse, says, "For the Lord hath
chosen Jacob unto Himself and Israel for
Hia peculiar treasure." Here we have
Israel presented to us as the peculiar treas
ure of God. God planned first of all that
Israel should make up the Kingdom. Jesus
came primarily to Israel. "He came unto
his own, and his own received Him not.
But to as many as did receive Him, to them
gave He power tobecome the Sons of God."
He came to Israel and Israel rejected Him,
and as the result Israel was hidden away;
she is hidden to-day as a nation. Israel re
mains hid in the great field of humanity.
Israel declined the offer of salvation
through the Christ, and Israel as a nation
was hidden ; scattered throughout all lands.
You will go to no country where you will
not find the Jew. They are scattered in all
lands, without a land of their own, without
a government. They may talk as much as
they like about reinhabiting Jerusalem;
but the Jew as a nation will never inhabit
Jerusalem until the coming again of our
Lord Jesus Christ. That will be the day
for Israel ; she will open her eyes and ac
knowledge that this Jesus of the Manger
and of the Cross is the promised Messiah

78 THE KINGDOM PARABLES
of Israel, and then Israel will bow that
stubborn knee and accept Jesus Christ,
and then Israel as a nation will be rein
stated, and will become the great evangel
izing force of the world in that period of
millennial triumph.
"And for joy thereof, goeth and sell-
eth all that He hath. ' ' He had already left
His possessions in Heaven; His citizen
ship in Heaven had been laid aside, and He
had taken upon Himself the infirmity of
man. But He goeth with rejoicing, for He
is not to be disappointed, and selleth all
that He hath, and buyeth the field in which
this treasure is hid. What was it that He
sold? He gave up His life; that is the
last of His possessions and He sells that
which He hath and buyeth that field.
"Buyeth that field"; that field of human
ity, in which the race Israel was scat
tered, in which the race Israel was hidden.
So that this sacrifice of Jesus incorporates
salvation for the Gentile world as well as
for the Jew. He bought the whole field in
which the Jew was hidden, and where the
Gentile reigned supreme; so that Gentile
and Jew as individuals are purchased by
the price of the life of the Son of God,
which is all that He had. It seems to me

THE HIDDEN TREASURE 79
that there could be nothing clearer. It
seems to me that any other interpretation
would rob the Scriptures of all their pro
phetic beauty and change the form and fig
ure of the whole New Testament scheme of
redemption. But it is not only true from this stand
point, but it is in perfect accord with all
the teachings of Jesus Christ concerning
the plan of salvation. It puts the Jew and
the Gentile into the proper relationship
to the great question of world-wide salva
tion. It makes no distinction; it is the
purchase of the field of humanity in which
Jew and Gentile are together mixed, in
which there is no distinction of race or
nationality; it puts the whole world, of
whatever grade or color or nationality,
upon the one plan of salvation by grace.
It is in strict keeping likewise with the
plan of redemption, in that salvation is
made to result from the complete sacrifice
of Jesus Christ. There is no such thing
taught in the Scriptures as salvation by
works. The man who teaches salvation
as the result of any ethical process teaches
that which is not in the Word of God ; and
there is a vast deal of that kind of teach
ing now. If Jesus is to be purchased by
the sale of anything, then all the teaching

80 THE KINGDOM PARABLES
of the church in all the ages past is false,
and she has built upon a wrong foundation.
Oh, how we have delighted in the fact that
we could go to a lost and ruined world and
present the salvation of Jesus Christ as a
salvation to be obtained without money
and without price. How we have delighted
to extend a helping hand to the man who
is down and say to him, "You need and
can obtain the salvation of Christ without
price; no matter if you are an ungodly
sinner, vile with sin; come to Jesus and
His blood will cover your sin; come look
into the face of One who is just as anxious
to save a sin begrimed soul with all the
filth of the world hanging to him as to
save the soul of the greatest moralist in
the community." That is the gospel that
we preach; that is the gospel that has
built churches all over this community;
that is the gospel that has built hospitals
and homes of refuge; that is the gospel
that has built Christian colleges and sem
inaries. That is the gospel that has com
forted us in the days of suffering and sor
row; the gospel of grace freely bestowed
without money and without price.
It is in keeping also with the nature of
the salvation of Jesus in that it represents

THE HIDDEN TREASURE 81
Jesus and not the sinner as the seeker. I
have heard preachers urge the unsaved to
seek Jesus. I have heard them call them
to come to the front seat and there kneel
and seek Jesus. I have no objection to the
coming to the front seat or to any other
plan, provided it does not suggest a false
conception of Jesus. I have known people
to seek Jesus for years and never find
Him. I have in mind a young man, a
chum in boyhood days, who used to go to
the front bench with me, seeking Jesus.
We have knelt at many a front bench to
gether at a protracted meeting and cried
until our hearts would nearly break. I
can almost hear him cry now. It seems to
me that he could cry with more feeling
and more pathos, with a greater depth of
agony, than anybody I ever knew. And
I left him, when I accepted Jesus Christ
and was adopted into His blessed
Kingdom; I left him still at the anxious
seat seeking Jesus. Many years after that
I was back in the old home section; and
neighbors, learning that I was coming, ar
ranged for me to preach out in a great
arbor in front of my old grandmother's
home. People came from all parts of the
country. Old friends and relatives, who
had not seen me for years — not since I was

82 THE KINGDOM PARABLES
grown up to manhood — had come for the
purpose of attending this service. One
of the sights that filled me with most
pleasure was that old chum and dis
tant relative, the boy with whom I had
frolicked many a happy day. When I
finished preaching he rushed up to me
and with arms around each other, we
stood talking. I said, "You are to
spend the night with me," and he said,
"No, I must go back home to my wife and
children." "Well, just send word you are
going to spend the night with me." He
did so, and we went back into the old room
where we used to frolic in bed at night,
where we had kicked each other out of bed
a hundred times. There in that old bed,
once more boys, I said to him, "Have you
ever found Jesus?" He hesitated a mo
ment before he said, "No." "Have you
continued to seek Him?" "Yes, and I
expect to be seeking Him until I die. I
will never give up. ' ' I said, ' ' Why haven't
you found Him ? " " I do not know. I have
thought of this many a time when I have
thought of your being a preacher, and won
dered why it was that I just could not find
Jesus. I have tried as hard as you ever
did and as hard as anybody ever did." I
said, "Will you let me tell you the secret

THE HIDDEN TREASURE 83
of it?" "Yes, if you can." "You have
not found Jesus because you have not
realized the fact that all this time and even
before you began to seek Jesus, He was
seeking you." It didn't take hold of him
at first. He asked me some questions
about it, and I put it to him again. "Jesus
is seeking you. He came to this world to
seek and to save that which was lost. Are
you lost?" "Of course I am," "Well,
He is seeking you, instead of your seeking
Him; you have been running from Him,
thinking that you were seeking Him. You
were seeking something else besides Jesus.
You have been seeking feeling; you have
been seeking somebody else's experience.
Jesus has been seeking you ; now stop run
ning after experience and let Jesus find you
right here and now." I gave him John
iii, 16, "For God so loved the world that He
gave His only begotten Son that whoso
ever believeth on Him should not perish
but have everlasting life." In a moment
or two I felt an arm slip around my neck
and he began to cry; but it was not the
cry of the seeker; it was the rejoicing cry
of the saved. There in that bed where we
had frolicked in childhood days he stopped
running after an experience and simply
let Jesus find him.

84 THE KINGDOM PARABLES
If there is any one thing that this world
needs to know to-day more than another
it is that Jesus is seeking the lost; that
that is His first business; that is what
brought Him here; that is what caused
Him to give His life on Calvary. It was to
find the lost. He is seeking after you to
day with all His heart of love; He is not
angry; He is not waiting to be appeased,
but He is seeking to find you.
"The Kingdom of Heaven is like unto a
treasure hid in a field; the which when a
man hath found, he hideth, and for joy
thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath,
and buyeth that field"; your field and
mine, the Jew's field and the Gentile's;
the great broad field of humanity. Jesus'
sacrificial death on the cross was broad
enough to comprehend every race and
every nation and every man and every
woman in all the nations of the earth.
Somebody may say, "That sounds of
Universalism. " It is Universalism in so far
as its provision is concerned. I shall never
forget when I was ordained to preach,
and a Presbytery of strong, able theo
logians examined me. I did not know much
theology. I did not know much about the
Bible; but I had a bit of common sense.

THE HIDDEN TREASURE 85
It was known by members of the Presby
tery, my pastor in particular, that I was
not just so strong on the doctrine of elec
tion as they thought I ought to be. This
Presbytery was made up of some old-
time electionists, and they decided to give
me a grilling on the subject of election,
and this was the question that they pro
pounded. Said they, "Do you believe in
election?" "Yes, sir," That surprised
them. "You do!" "Yes, sir." "Do you
believe in fore-ordination?" "Yes, sir."
"You do!" Then they scratched their
heads a bit and looked at one another as
if to say, ' ' There is something lower down
if we can get to it." "Do you believe in
free agency?" "Yes, sir." "Do you be
lieve that there is anybody in Heaven that
could have been in hell ? " " Yes, sir, ' ' said
I. Then they began to look extremely in
terested. "Do you believe there is any
body in hell that could be in Heaven if
they had so elected?" "Yes, sir," was my
reply. "Then why do you say that you
are an electionist?" "Because I think
the Bible teaches it. I think it teaches dis
tinctly an election of the nation, and it
teaches an election of individuals to ser
vice; but I find nowhere that the Bible
teaches the election of individuals to sal-

86 THE KINGDOM PARABLES
vation." I believe there is a salvation
prepared through the atoning sacrifice of
Jesus for every man in every land, for
every soul that ever breathed, and that
ever will breathe the breath of life ; but be
cause there is a salvation prepared is no
argument that every individual will be
saved. Far from it. It is simply a uni
versal provision, which must be accepted
by the individual if ever he is saved.
When my father was a young man there
was a proclamation made throughout the
country by the United States government
for everybody that would accept it, that
the government would give a certain
amount of land in a certain section out
West to all who would go and settle upon
it. My father and two other young men
decided to accept this offer. The papers
were all drawn up. Those two young men
remained firm; my father got timorous
and unbelieving and distrustful and would
not go; he stayed at home; they went
and each settled upon his little piece of
land. One of them discovered a silver
mine, the other discovered a copper mine.
Those two young men from the backwoods
of North Carolina have long since become
rich: they went; they accepted; they be-

THE HIDDEN TREASURE 87
came independently rich; my father re
jected and became dependently poor. That
is an illustration of the difference between
the saved and the unsaved in the atoning
sacrifice of Jesus. The man who accepts
it is saved ; the man who rejects it is lost.
But we are concerned also about the
nation Israel which is hidden away. They
will have a chance to again come into play.
The harvest time for Israel is when the
King comes. When He comes Israel is
coming out from the long hiding and is
going to again be the greatest people on
earth. Israel as a nation will be saved,
but not until He comes who is King.
"God sitteth King forever
The waterfloods above,
And he who reigns in judgment
Doth also reign in love.
All powers His scepter ruleth,
All hosts His will obey ;
His throne is in the heavens,
And earth lies 'neath his sway.
Now deep distress of nations,
Hearts failing them for fear;
Darkness and desolation
Brood over men far and near.

88 THE KINGDOM PARABLES
But soon God's new creation,
From chaos of the night,
To wondrous morn shall waken,
And there shall yet be light.
We see thee now, Lord Jesus,
With praise and glory crowned;
All things not yet put under,
Until the trumpet sound.
But conquering and to conquer,
Thou dost ride forth to win
The last fight of the ages,
The victory over sin.
0 rest! amidst upheaving
And triumphs of the wrong,
Amidst earth's sighs and grievmg,
And bitter cry, How long?
O joy! beyond the sorrow,
0 peace, above the pain;
Glad hope of bright to-morrow —
Lord Jesus, thou shalt reign.

VIII
THE PEARL OF GREAT PRICE

"Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like unto a
merchant seeking goodly pearls; and having found
one pearl of great price, he went and sold all that
he had and bought it." — Matt, xiii, 45, 46.

THE parable of the Hidden Treasure
which we last considered and the
parable of the Pearl of Great
Price are very similar in some respects.
By many expositors they are regarded as
teaching the same lesson. There is great
similarity in the popular interpretation
that is given to both of them. In the case
of the parable of the Hidden Treasure the
popular interpretation is that the hidden
treasure represents salvation and the man
seeking it and finding it and selling his
possessions to obtain it is the sinner seek
ing Christ and finding Him. In the para
ble of the Pearl of Great Price the popular
interpretation is the same. The Pearl of
Great Price, according to popular inter
pretation, is salvation. The man who finds
it and sells all his possessions is the sin-
89

90 THE KINGDOM PARABLES
ner seeking salvation in Christ and finding
it. But just as we saw that this popular
interpretation of the parable of the Hid
den Treasure is contrary to all the re
demptive scheme of the New Testament,
so we find with reference to this parable.
The popular interpretation is contrary to
the great scheme of redemption that we
find outlined for us in the New Testament
scriptures. It is contrary in the first place
in that it represents the sinner as the
seeking one, when it is a fact that Jesus
seeks the sinner long before the sinner
seeks Jesus. If that were not true there
would never be a soul saved on this earth.
Jesus came seeking to save that which was
lost. He came primarily for that purpose,
that He might save men from their sins,
and the Holy Spirit as the representative
of the seeking Christ has first to make His
impression upon the human heart before
there is any upturned look on the part of
the sinner.
It is contrary also to the redemptive
scheme, in that it represents salvation as a
thing to be purchased by the sinner. If
the Pearl of Great Price is salvation, and
if the man seeking it and finding it and
selling all that he has and buying it repre
sents the sinner in his effort to be saved,

THE PEARL OF GREAT PRICE 91
such a salvation would be of works and not
of grace.
Now, what is the lesson of this parable?
Brushing aside everybody's interpretation
and coming to view it in the light of the
scheme of redemption, what does this
pearl of great price represent? As I see
it, it can represent but one thing, and that
is the Church of Jesus Christ on earth.
When I say the church I do not mean at
all to be understood as referring to any
denomination. I do not refer to the Bap
tists or the Methodists or the Presby
terians or the Roman Catholics or any of
these organizations within the one great
Church of Jesus Christ. I refer to the
church as we find it represented in men
and women who believe on Jesus and are
saved — to the great world of redeemed
men and women. There are two views of
the church in the Scriptures. When the
church is mentioned, it either refers to the
church-general, as I have just indicated,
the church made up of redeemed souls
through the shed blood of Jesus Christ,
world-wide, or else it is the organized lo
cal body. In the sense that the Pearl of
Great Price represents the church it is the
universal church, the church spiritual, the

92 THE KINGDOM PARABLES
church of the redeemed, the holy Catholic
church. You will remember in connection with
the parable of the Hidden Treasure that
we held that the hidden treasure repre
sented the Jews, and the One who found
the treasure was Jesus Himself. When
He found the hidden treasure He hid it
away. He gave Himself a ransom for the
purchase of that field, that field of hu
manity in which Israel was hidden so that
Israel was bought by Jesus through Hia
death on the cross; He purchased the
great world field of humanity which incor
porated within its scope the Jew.
Up to the present day there has not
been a single reference in all these para
bles of the Kingdom to the church. We
saw at the outset that the Kingdom was
not synonymous with the Church as some
think ; nor the church the Kingdom ; that
the Kingdom in its completion is this world
of men and women with Jesus Christ as
King. The present administration of the
Spirit is to gather out from among the
men and women of the world material with
which and through which our coming King
is to govern His holy Kingdom when He
returns to this earth. Here our Lord is
giving us some little glimpse of the church

THE PEARL OF GREAT PRICE 93
taking its part in the great scheme of
gathering out those that He would have
saved, that He might prepare them for
their respective places in the great world
kingdom over which He is personally to
preside when He returns the second time.
I want us to see how happily, how beau
tifully the Pearl of Great Price represents
the Church of Jesus Christ. In the first
place, there is the character of its composi
tion. The pearl is not so precious now as
in those olden times. At that time it was
regarded as an exclusive jewel, being worn
only by the members of the royal family ;
no one else was allowed to adorn himself
with a pearl. It was regarded for various
reasons as perhaps the most exclusive and
most precious of jewels. The pearl is un
like every other gem. If you will study
the chemistry of jewels you will find that
the pearl stands out as the one unique gem
of them all. Every other jewel is an inor
ganic compound. The diamond, emerald,
topaz, and all other precious stones are
inorganic. No life has been involved in
the formation of these jewels. Chemists
tell us that the pearl is composed simply
of carbonate of lime. In its chemical an
alysis it is exactly like that of common
chalk with which we write upon the black-

94 THE KINGDOM PARABLES
board. It simulates the chalk like the
graphite of the pencil does the diamond.
That piece of graphite is identical in every
whit in its chemical composition, in the ele
ments that go to make it up, with the dia
mond. The same thing is true of the pearl
and chalk. They are both composed of
carbonate of lime, and yet nobody is able
to understand how it is that one is prac
tically worthless and the other is so valu
able ; but it is nevertheless true. It is true
also that in the formation of this jewel
there is involved life. So in this particular
the pearl of great price represents the
Church of Jesus.
The church is not made up of a stated
lot of creeds and forms and documents.
That is not the church, nor is it to be con
sidered as the place where we worship.
The house in which we worship is in no
sense to be considered the Church of Jesus
Christ. It is simply a place set apart for
the church to assemble and carry on its
work for God. None of these things make
up the church. The church as represented
by the Pearl of Great Price is the great
body of redeemed men and women for
whose salvation there has been poured out
the sacrifice of life as the Son of God.
Have you ever studied the formation of

THE PEARL OF GREAT PRICE 95
pearls? They come mostly from the
oyster and the clam, and sometimes from
the common mussels that we find in the
branches and the small streams. What is
the explanation of the beautiful pearl
found in the oyster shell? Scientists tell
us that the pearl is the result of continued
suffering and agony on the part of the
little creature that lives within that shell.
It was once thought that the presence of
the pearl in the oyster indicated health and
vigor, but long since science has demon
strated that this is not true, that the pearl
in the oyster indicates the reverse; it in
dicates constant suffering and agony. The
pearl has its beginning in an irritation
which is usually produced by the admission
through some crack or crevice that is made
in the shell, of some foreign substance,
most generally a tiny bit of sand. This
foreign substance sets up an irritation ; the
irritation causes the oyster to bleed. This
life supporting fluid is drawn out bit by
bit, layer by layer it hardens, the little
creature giving its life blood for the forma
tion of his pearl. The brilliancy of every
pearl has its beginning in the constant
suffering of the little creature by whom it
is formed. How beautifully this repre
sents the Church of Jesus Christ! Do

96 THE KINGDOM PARABLES
you want a fit picture of the way the church
is formed? Read the 53d chapter of
Isaiah: "He was wounded for our trans
gressions, he was bruised for our iniquities,
the chastisement of our peace was upon
him." Oh, when I begin to think of the
suffering that was necessary for the forma
tion of the Church, I feel that I am totally
unfit and unable and unworthy to attempt
to expound the truth. Oh, the suffering!
Yonder upon Calvary Jesus our Lord, in
nocent, is suffering for our redemption;
and the foreign substance that is causing
His suffering is nothing more nor less than
the sin of the world; foreign to Him, for
He knew no sin. He had no sin, and yet
sin, your sin and my sin is laid upon Him ;
and around it and over it He poured the
blood of His life in great soul agony, that
He might polish and perfect the Church,
His Pearl of Great Price. No wonder
Jesus is so careful of His church. We all
love that which costs us most. We are all
inclined to stand by that which we suffer
for most. We are all ready to fight for the
things dearest to our heart. A man will
fight for his country, for his home, because
it lies nearest and dearest to his heart.
It is so with the church. When Jesus
came to the hidden treasure, His own

THE PEARL OF GREAT PRICE 97
precious treasure Israel, and was rejected,
He hid it away during the period of the
Gentiles; the period of the church; then
He set out to seek His people, another peo
ple. At last the Church, the pearl of great
price, was formed; His Pearl of Great
Price, over which He suffered, for which
He poured out His heart's blood. No won
der He is proud of it and watches it. A
pearl that has cost the Son of God such
suffering and agony of soul and body will
not come to defeat. The day dawn is com
ing when this pearl is going to shine forth
in all its beauty.
Again let me say that this Pearl of Great
Price represents the church in the use that
is made of it. Of course, the pearl with us
is used simply for ornamentation, but it
was not so in the days of our Lord. In
those days the pearl was looked upon as a
means of healing ; it was supposed to have
a charm for the healing of sorrow and
bereavement; there was a kind of magic
in it that was supposed to drive away the
spirits of sorrow and gloom; and so it
came to be looked on as an emblem of
peace or joy. When there was seen a pearl
it was regarded as a sign that sorrow and
gloom had been dispelled. It was fre-

98 THE KINGDOM PARABLES
quently used after war and great periods
of conflict and struggle between different
nations and individuals, when the smoke of
battle had passed away. How fitly this
represents the Church of Jesus. Oh, what
has it meant to the world as a healing for
its sorrows, its suffering, its misery and
disappointment. Have you ever stopped
to think what our city would be if there
were no churches here? If you were sud
denly placed where there is no church in
some country where there is not a re
deemed soul, every man and woman and
child looking into the face of a heathen
God, you can get some estimate of what
the church is worth to the world as a balm
for its troubles and trials.
I once attended the funeral of a httle
child, where neither father nor mother was
a member of the church. And who were
gathered around that little coffin in which
the child lay? The men of the world? No.
The men of great influence? No. The
mighty men of business ? No. The women
in society? No. There were gathered
around that little coffin to comfort and
solace the suffering and the sorrow that
had come to that home a band of church
folks, men and women who had quit their
work and had come to spend this hour com-

THE PEARL OF GREAT PRICE 99
f orting the bereaved ; and when I began to'
look into the parable, that scene came up
before me afresh: there was the Pearl of
Great Price dispelling the gloom, driving
away the sorrow, trying to bring hope and
hfe. That is the work of the church. That
is the mission of the Pearl of Great Price.
Lastly, I want to say a word about the
fitness of this illustration in that the pearl
has to be polished. It is of little value
when it is first taken out of its home. It
has to go carefully through the hand of the
polisher; here and there it has to be
touched before it reaches its fullest value.
So with the Church of Jesus Christ. It has
to be carried through its period of polish
ing. The church is the Pearl of Great
Price, which price is the life of the Son
of God. On the cross He poured forth His
blood that He might redeem us and make
us worthy of our place in His Kingdom;
but the church, like the pearl, is to pass
through the hand of the polisher. Some
times the polishing seems a heavy struggle.
Sometimes the hand and the instrument
of the polisher seems rough. We never
understand why we have to go through
these things, but as loyal subjects of the
Kingdom of Christ and members of the
church-universal, we have to stand by and

100 THE KINGDOM PARABLES
submit willingly and loyally and lovingly
to the work of the polisher, knowing that
the day will come when we shall understand
the mystery. That day is coming. After
awhile Jesus is coming back for His pearl
of great price; that which He purchased
with His life; that for which He poured
forth His sacrificial blood. No wonder
He is coming back to it. When the trumpet
of God is sounded yonder in the skies, the
Church of Jesus will come forth, and those
that live yet upon the earth will be changed
and made fit for His presence; then to
gether with the risen rejoicing dead and
the changed righteous living, making up
the one great universal church, with one
Lord, one faith and one baptism, we shall
march through the skies beyond the noise
and the turmoil and the strife and the suf
fering that goes on down here in the period
of the great tribulation.

IX
THE DRAGNET
"Again, the Kingdom of heaven Is like unto a net,
that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every
kind: which, when it was filled, they drew up on
the beach ; and they sat down, and gathered the
good into vessels, but the bad they cast away. So
shall it be in the end of the world ; the angels shall
come forth and sever the wicked from among the
righteous, and shall cast them into the furnace of
Are; there shall be the weeping and gnashing of
teeth."— Matt, xiii, 47-50.
THIS parable is similar to all the rest
of the parables of the Kingdom in
that it presents the four points of
special interest. You remember in these
parables we have found that each one pre
sents four separate and distinct points of
interest. So here we have the net, the
sea, the fish, and the fishermen. Now, it is
also similar to the other parables in that it
has two interpretations. There is what we
have seen fit to call the popular interpreta
tion, and there is the interpretation which
is not so generally accepted. The popular
interpretation is that held by those who
101

102 THE KINGDOM PARABLES
believe that, in all of the parables, the
Kingdom represents the Church. The
net is considered to represent the Church,
and the sea the world; the fish the souls
gathered out of the world by the Church;
and the fishermen represent the workers in
the Church — the ministers and the Sunday-
school teachers and the office bearers, the
deacons and the like. Those who give
themselves to the work of the Church of
Jesus Christ are by this interpretation re
garded as the fishermen gathering in the
fish. It does seem to me that the Master's
own application of this parable is sufficient
to show to any reasonable mind that this
interpretation is not the correct one; for
clearly, in His application of it, He sets
forth that the fishermen gathering up the
fish, managing the net, assorting the fish
when they are caught, are the angels them
selves, who are sent from God upon a defi
nite mission of assorting and arranging
the fish. If we look carefully at the teach
ing of all these parables up to the present
we shall get very definitely and clearly
what this one is set to teach; and it is one
of the most interesting and certainly one
of the most instructive of all that our Mas
ter gave.

THE DRAGNET 103
Let us fix in our minds the points that
each parable teaches.
The first represents the beginning of the
Kingdom. The tares, the difficulties
through which the Kingdom has to pass.
The mustard seed, the external develop
ment and growth of the Kingdom. The
leaven, the internal or spiritual growth of
the individual subjects of the Kingdom.
The hidden treasure, the position of Israel,
God's favored and favorite people in the
process and development of the King
dom. The Pearl of Great Price, the posi
tion of the Church in the process and
development of the Kingdom. We come
now to learn of another phase of the King
dom's development. This parable of the
dragnet, as I see it, is to set forth clearly
the construction of the Kingdom about
which our Lord has been speaking — the
preliminary and initial arrangement.
You will remember that we have made
the point during all of this study that the
Kingdom of Heaven is at present only in
the process of evolution; the process of
growth and development. Our Lord Him
self is the King, banished, as it were, from
His domain; but He is at work through
His representatives, and by His own Spirit
gathering up the material by which and

104 THE KINGDOM PARABLES
with which the Kingdom of Heaven is
eventually to be fully established.
To use an illustration: The Pope of
Rome regards himself as the King of Italy,
though he has to recognize the fact that he
is the banished king; he lives in seclu
sion, and his cardinals and priests, his rep
resentatives, are in all parts of the earth
at work, planning and working; the Pope
hopes to be reinstated as the real acting,
ruling sovereign of all Italy and of all the
powers. Our Lord is the banished King;
but He is at His place at the right hand of
God, the Father, banished, not by reason
of man's decree; the decrees of men are
in accordance with the great plan and pur
pose of God, wrought out before the world
was made. Jesus is at the right hand of
God the Father to-day because He wills
to be there ; He is making intercession with
God the Father for all His subjects, and
for all lost men everywhere the world over.
He through His Holy Spirit is now gather
ing up the material with which the King
dom is eventually to be completed. Some
day He is to return. He is to return just
when every subject has been secured and
prepared for the Kingdom. Then it is that
He will come and take His position among
men on this earth and rule in the affairs

THE DRAGNET 105
of men. This is the purpose, therefore, of
this parable ; it is to give us a glimpse of
the Kingdom's struggles and its final cul
mination. If we take a concordance and
look through the teaching of the Scriptures
in the Old Testament prophecies and the
New, we shall see that this teaching as
given in this parable is clearly the pro
gram of Jesus. I ask you to note the fact
that the Old Testament prophecies are just
as clear in their prophecies concerning the
second coming of Jesus and the establish
ment of his earthly Kingdom as they are
about His first advent ; and when we come
into the New Testament Scriptures, where
Jesus Himself speaks and where His
apostles and disciples are speaking for
Him, we have the truth more clearly set
forth. Let us for a moment go back and take
our stand upon Olivet; beautiful, holy,
God-crowned Olivet, where Jesus the last
time looked into the faces of His disciples,
and where for the last time the eye of man
looked into the eye of God; there stand
ing upon that holy summit, surrounded by
His circle of disciples, in conversation with
them about some of the deep and weighty
things of the Kingdom, and giving them

106 THE KINGDOM PARABLES
some directions as to their part in its es
tablishment, how that they were to go into
all parts of the world, preaching the gospel
to every creature. As they hung with
breathless silence upon the Master's last
words, that peculiar, indescribable, inex
plicable miracle took place — the Ascension.
Jesus began, without a single premonitory
expression leading them to expect such a
thing, to ascend out of their midst. He
went up higher and higher until He was
out of sight. The disciples were so awed
that not a word was spoken. I think that
they felt very much as I should feel to
day, if suddenly our Lord should appear
in our midst. I feel quite sure there would
not be one of us that could speak. There
would be such an overmastering awe that
no one could utter a syllable. So I am not
surprised that there is not a word recorded
that these disciples spoke. They could
simply stand and gaze and look as the Mas
ter went through the trackless space into
the beyond. Just then an angel appeared
from heaven with the very first message
that He sent after His ascension, and
that was a promise of His return. These
are the words of the angel who bore the
message, "Ye men of Galilee, why stand
ye gazing up into heaven? This same

THE DRAGNET 107
Jesus which was taken from you into
heaven shall so come in like manner as ye
have seen Him go into heaven." The
very first word that was spoken after Jesus
had returned to His Father— the first
word even before time had elapsed for His
great reception in heaven by the redeemed
spirits and angels — the first thing that
Jesus did was to speed back to the earth,
for the encouragement of His waiting dis
ciples, a hope of His second coming.
From that time all through the New
Testament period the Church moved with
an upturned look; they were not looking
at the open grave, but they were looking
for the coming of the Lord; and from
that time until the present there have
been many who have been constantly mov
ing with the eye of expectancy. I am one
of them. So far as I can see, from the
study of the prophets and in gathering up
the opinions of men who know far more
than I know, it is difficult to understand
why the Lord Himself is tarrying to-day.
I cannot see but that we are now living in
the evening time of this dispensation, and
I should not be surprised if that beautiful
model prayer that He gave us, ' ' Thy King
dom come," were about to be answered.
There are five things that the Apostle

108 THE KINGDOM PARABLES
Paul tells us, in First Thessalonians, chap
ter four, that will occur before our Lord
comes to the earth to take the reins of
government in His hands. There will be
first the blast of the trumpet; then the
voice of the Arch-angel. Third, the resur
rection of the righteous dead. Fourth, the
change of the righteous living. Fifth, the
ascension of those who are prepared to
meet the Lord in the air. We are here to
day; things are moving as they usually
move, and nothing strange is occurring:
there is nothing so far as we can see that
would cause us to expect any great change
to take place in the affairs of men ; and yet,
in my judgment, the Lord is almost pre
pared for the blowing of the trumpet, the
shout of the Arch-angel, the opening of the
graves and the resurrection of the right
eous dead, and the changing of the right
eous living, for the ascension of those who
are to meet the Lord in the air. I cannot
say that this is the time; I cannot say
that it is not. I can only quote the words
of our Lord and say, "Watch, therefore,
for you know not the day nor the hour
wherein our Lord doth come. " But that is
not the only thing that is to take place be
fore our Lord returns to the earth. We are
told that the devil is to be chained. The

THE DRAGNET 109
world is now under the administration of
the devil. We talk about God's reigning
on the earth; God does not reign any
where on this earth except in the hearts of
His subjects. I do not know a piece of
ground on which God's perfect will is ab
solutely carried out. I do not know a sin
gle section of the world where the will of
God is done as perfectly and absolutely
as it is done to-day in heaven. It is true
we are holding the devil in check to some
extent; but it is his day and will continue
to be until our Lord Himself comes.
I received a letter recently seeking to
get me to a town for an evangelistic cam
paign, and one thing the writer said was
this : "Come and let's run the devil out of
town." I wrote back and said, "You do
not know the devil as well as I do ; if you
did you would not be talking about run
ning him out of town." He did not know
the devil in the Scriptures or he would
never expect to run him out of town. The
devil isn't in the running business. If
anybody is on the run it is the church.
You can say many things about the devil —
abuse him ; you can't abuse him too much.
But you can't say that he is a coward.
There is nothing that he will not risk that

110 THE KINGDOM PARABLES
he may damn a soul. He is in charge of
the affairs of this world and he will con
tinue to be until at last the Avenger shall
come from the throne of God for his ar
rest. Then will be the period of his ban
ishment; but all the churches of Chris
tendom might band together to-day to put
him out of this world and he could not
be put out. We might hold him in check
in his efforts to damn the race, but to get
rid of him in his efforts to damn the race,
such a thing cannot be done, until it is done
by the decree of God.
Here we are in this period of Satanic
'domination. The Church is working
and the Kingdom is being established;
souls are being prepared for the final con
summation — for the period of construction.
After awhile the trumpet of God shall be
heard and the voice of the Arch-angel ; the
dead in Christ will be raised, the living in
Christ will be changed ; then the holy an
gels, the fishermen of this parable, will
come and their mission to this earth will
be that of assortment: those that are pre
pared will be gathered ; those that are not
prepared will be hurled into the furnace
of fire. The furnace of fire in this instance
represents that great and awful persecution
through which those that are left upon

THE DRAGNET 111
the earth will have to pass when the Church
of God, the Bride of Jesus, is caught up
to meet Him in the air. Somebody says,
"What is to become of the unrighteous
dead? If the righteous dead are to be
raised at the sound of the trumpet and the
voice of the Arch-angel, what is to become
of the unrighteous dead?" John, in hia
Apocalyptic vision, gives an answer to that
question. He says that "the rest of the
dead lived not upon the earth until the
thousand years are past"; then they will
come forth and together with all the world
will stand at the Great White Throne and
be judged according to the deeds done in
the body.
What is to become of the unrighteous
living left on the earth when Jesus sends
His angels to bring the Church, the re
deemed of the world, to Himself in the air?
They will pass through that awful persecu
tion, that period of tribulation described
by our Lord in the 24th chapter of Mat
thew, and so vigorously and so terribly
depicted in the vision of the prophet
Daniel. This will be their time of perse
cution and tribulation. It is that period
when brother shall be arrayed against
brother; son against mother; mother
against son; the world of humanity left

112 THE KINGDOM PARABLES
without a constraining influence! The
church gone, every good man and good
woman gone to be with the Lord ; the Holy
Spirit's administration is at an end, and
nothing but the devil incarnate in the Anti
christ in charge of the affairs of this
world. At present the Anti-christ is at work;
he has been at work all the time, but we are
told in the Scriptures that the Anti-christ
is hindered by the Spirit ; by the Church ;
by the redeemed of God : but there will be
no Spirit here then; the Holy Spirit's
administration will be at an end and the
Anti-christ will be let loose; he will be the
vicegerent of Satan, and all the misery
that the devil can heap upon human beings
will be heaped upon the inhabitants of the
earth at that time.
But is that all? We have left the Lord
in the air, where the Bride has gone to meet
Him; where the marriage supper of the
Lamb is to be celebrated: but that is not
all. The Kingdom is not yet formed.
When we go up to meet the Lord in the
air, we go there for the purpose of ap
pointment. Each man will be appointed
to his station, his position, his place in the
earthly ministration of Jesus. I will have

THE DRAGNET 113
my place. I do not know what it will be,
whether a place conspicuous or humble,
but I will have my place in that period.
You will have yours. Every redeemed soul
will have his place. Jesus will use this oc
casion for the organization and the con
struction of His subjects that are to form
the basis of His earthly administration,
and when our places are assigned, and we
are fitted into them, a commission will be
given to the Angel to come and arrest the
devil and take him out of the earth, to lock
him in the pit for a period of a thousand
years; and then will come the King and
His subjects that have been redeemed and
assigned to their places, back to this earth ;
back to the place where He was crucified;
back to the place where we ourselves as
His subjects have been villified and slan
dered; back to the scene of our struggle.
Can you imagine a greater privilege after
these years of absence from this earth and
presence with the Lord to come again with
Him to the place of our childhood! Back
here to reign, back here to rule ; back here
to help Jesus as He administers the af
fairs of this world, national, municipal,
local, and world-wide; as He, the ruling
sovereign, once crucified and driven from
His place among men ! This Christ admin-

114 THE KINGDOM PARABLES
istering the reins of universal, world-wide
government through us as His subjects, re
deemed and trained and fitted for our place
in the Master 's government. Oh, the ques
tion that beats and throbs in my heart is,
if Jesus should come to-day, are we ready?
Would we get a place as high as we should
like? Could we stand such an examination
for usefulness as we should like? What
would be His assignment of me? What
would be His assignment of you?
"High raise your heads, ye lofty gates,
For see, the King of Glory waits ;
Ye everlasting doors arise,
And make a passage as he flies.
' ' But hark ! the heavenly hosts inquire,
Who is this mighty, conquering King?
In cheerful strains the answering choir
Lift high their voice, and sweetly sing:
"He is the Lord of boundless might,
High raise your heads, ye gates of light ;
He conquered death, and hell, and sin;
Lift up, ye doors, he shall come in.
"But hark! again the angels say,
Who is this mighty, conquering King?
Who rises to the realms of day;

THE DRAGNET 115
Whose praise with such applause ye
sing?
"The Lord, of boundless power possessed;
God over all, forever blessed :
The Lord of hosts, the most renowned,
The King of endless glory crowned."

X
THE COMING OF THE KING
AFTER all that has been said, the
great inspiration of these parables
is the coming of the King when
the Kingdom is ready. At present He is
preparing for this blessed event, and all
along we see His coming outlined. And
the parable of the Householder, which fol
lows the Dragnet, clearly sets forth our
duty to be on the watch, doing what we
can to hasten His coming.
There is no more glorious truth to a
genuine child of God than this. I shall
never forget when my own heart was first
fired with it. It was the last time I ever
heard D. L. Moody, at Northfield. For
fully an hour he preached on "The Com
ing of the Lord," and I do not know that
I was ever so much moved before. He
closed with a poem with which I close this
little book, praying that God may bless it
to others as He blessed it to me that day.
116

THE COMING OF THE KING 117
"It may be in the evening,
When the work of the day is done,
And you have time to sit in the twilight
And watch the sinking sun,
While the long bright day dies slowly
Over the sea,
And the hour grows quiet and holy
With thoughts of Me ;
While you hear the village children
Passing along the street,
Among those thronging footsteps
May come the sound of My feet.
Therefore, I tell you, Watch,
By the light of the evening star,
When the room is growing dusky
As the clouds afar;
Let the door be on the latch
In your home,
For it may be through the gloaming
I will come.
"It may be when the midnight
Is heavy upon the land,
And the black waves lying rumbly
Along the sand;
When the moonless night draws close,
And the lights are out in the house ;
When the fire burns low and red,
And the watch is ticking loudly
Beside the bed.

118 THE KINGDOM PARABLES
"Though you sleep, tired out, on your
couch,
Still your heart must wake and watch
In the dark room,
For it may be that at midnight
I will come.
"It may be at the cock-crow,
When the night is dying slowly
In the sky,
And the sea looks calm and holy,
Waiting for the dawn
Of the golden sun,
Which draweth nigh;
When the mists are on the valleys,
shading
The rivers chill,
And my morning star is fading, fading
Over the hill :
Behold, I say unto you, Watch;
Let the door be on the latch
In your home;
In the chill before the dawning,
Between the night and morning
I may come.
"It may be in the morning,
When the sun is bright and strong,
And the dew is glittering sharply
Over the little lawn;

THE COMING OF THE KING 119
"When the waves are laughing loudly
Along the shore,
And the little birds are singing sweetly
About the door;
With the long day's work before you,
You rise up with the sun,
And the neighbors come in to talk a little
Of all that must be done ;
But remember that I may be the next
To come in at the door,
To call you from your busy work
Forever more.
As you work your heart must watch,
For the door is on the latch
In your room,
And it may be in the morning
I wiU come."
So He passed down my cottage garden,
By the path that leads to the sea,
Till He came to the turn of the little road
Where the birch and the laburnum
tree
Lean over and arch the way ;
There I saw Him a moment stay,
And turn once more to me,
As I wept at the cottage door,
And life up His hands in blessing —
Then I saw His face no more.

120 THE KINGDOM PARABLES
And I stood still in the doorway,
Leaning against the wall,
Not heeding the fair white roses,
Though I crushed them and let them
fall;
Only looking down the pathway,
And looking towards the sea,
And wondering, and wondering
When He would come back for me,
Till I was aware of an angel
Who was going swiftly by,
With the gladness of one who goeth
In the light of God most high.
He passed the end of the cottage
Towards the garden gate, —
(I suppose he was come down
At the setting of the sun
To comfort someone in the village
Whose dwelling was desolate),
And he paused before the door
Beside my place,
And the likeness of a smile
Was on his face —
"Weep not," he said, "for unto you ia
given
To watch for the coming of His feet
Who is the Glory of our blessed heaven.
The work and watching will be very
sweet,

THE COMING OF THE KING 121
"Even in an earthly home,
And in such an hour as you think not,
He will come. ' '
So I am watching quietly
Every day.
Whenever the sun shines brightly,
I rise and say,
"Surely it is the shining of His face,"
And look unto the gates of His high place
Beyond the sea,
For I know He is coming shortly
To summon me.
And when a shadow falls across the
window
Of my room,
Where I am working my appointed task,
I lift my head to watch the door, and ask
If He is come;
And the Angel answer sweetly
In my home,
' ' Only a few more shadows
And He will come."

THE end

 CHRISTOLOGY 
What Jesus Said
The Great Discourse of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
iamo, cloth, net $1.25.
Here we have the words or sayings of Jesus compiled
topically, without extraneous matter. The book meets a dis
tinct want.
F. R. MONTGOMERY HITCHCOCK
Christ and His Critics
i2mo, cloth, $1.00.
A discriminating and original description of prominent
aspects of the Life of Christ as touched upon by criticism
and research, displaying both a thorough mastery of the
subject and a most refreshing style.
BISHOP WM. FRAZER McDOWELL
In the School of Christ
Cole Lectures for iqio. i2mo, Cloth, net $1.25.
A thoughtful, sympathetic, and original arrangement
of the teaching Christ gave to His disciples to fit them for
the apostolate. The chapters are suggestive in their very
titles: Chosen by the Master — I To Hear What He Says;
II To See What He Does; III To Learn What He Is.
Sent Forth by the Master — I With a Message; II With a
Program; III With a Personality.
CHARLES McTYEIRE BISHOP, D. D.
Jesus the Worker
Studies in the Ethical Leadership of the Son of Man. The
Cole Lectures for rqog. i2mo, cloth, net $1.25.
"The scholarly attainments and vigor of this well-
trained mind -were known to a wide circle of friends who
were ready to declare that the lectures for 1909 would take
rank among the best delivered upon this foundation. This
prophecy has been fulfilled." — Nashville Christian Advocate.
JOHN A. HUTTON, M.A.
The Authority and Person of Our Lord
i6mo, Cloth, net 50c.
A penetratng and original discussion of the Deity of
Jesus. The lectures which constitute it were delivered at
Northfield and there created interest. Its small size makes
it easily read in an hour.
CLELAND B. McAFEE, D. D.
Studies in the Sermon on the Mount
i2mo, cloth, net $1.00.
Dr. McAfee brings to whatever he discusses a freshness
and originality which makes a place for whatever he may
write. In these studies his aim seems to have been to touch
as far as possible those aspects and applications of the great
discourse usually passed over.

CLINICAL STUDIES OF CHRISTIANITY

HAROLD BEGBIE Twice-Born Men
A Clinic in Regeneration*
iamo, cloth, net $1.25.
A footnote in narrative to Prof. Win. Jame** "The
Varieties of Religious Experience."
Studies in the phenomena of conversion from the stand
point of the student of human nature.
Prof. William Tames, of Harvard, says: "Mr. Begbie'a
book is a wonderful set of stories splendidly worked up. It
certainly needs no preface from me. I might as well call my
book a foot-note to his. I am proud of the dedication and
pf the references and I wish the book a great success."
J. Wilbur Chapman says: "One of the most thrillingly
interesting books I have ever read. I could wish that every
Christian might read the book and receive as much per
sonal spiritual profit as has come to me."
HORACE EMORY WARNER, Ph.D.
The Psychology of the Christian Life
8vo, cloth, net $1.50.
An unusually scholarly and at the same time scripturally
enforced study of the Christian life in which the usual ter
minology is replaced by descriptions psychological and scien
tific. The author has chosen a very nearly clear field and
while many have written of the psychology of religious ex
perience. Dr. Warner confines himself to the Christian
and Evangelical field, thus making an invaluable contribution
both to Christian scholarship and the philosophy of religion.
WILLIAM ALEXANDER GRIST
The Historic Chri& in the Faith of To-day
8vo. cloth, net $2.50.
This work on the central figure of Christianity occupies a
ground midway between a regular Christology on the one
hand _ and a biography of Christ on the other. It is conserva
tive in the best sense of the word, and is a very distinctly
noteworthy contribution to the literature on the subject.
JOHN TIMOTHY STONE, DP.
Recruiting for Christ
Hand to Hand Methods with Men.
lamo, Cloth, net $1.00.
The chapters which comprise this book were given as
Lectures before a class conducted under the auspices of
the Federation of Church Clubs and Brotherhood in Chicago.
Dr. Stone speaks both with the spirit of personal work and
the best methods of getting at it in an unusually vigorous and
wholesome way. The book differs absolutely from the ster
eotyped and more or less hackneyed collection of special cases
and equally stereotyped selections, and will be found inval
uable to- arouse a sense of responsibility in this subject as
well as furnishing wise directions for its pursuit.

BIBLE STUDY

G. CAMPBELL MORGAN
The Analyzed Bible Nvs0?VMEi
The Prophecy of Isaiah, Vol. I.
The Prophecy of Isaiah, Vol. II.
I2mo, cloth, each, net $1.00.
The announcement of two new volumes in Dr. Morgan's
popular series THE ANALYZED BIBLE is sure to be re
ceived with interest. Each volume is a commentary on th«
particular book and entirely complete in itself,
G. CAMPBELL MORGAN, D. D.
The Study and Teaching of the English Bible
i6mo, cloth, net 50c.
Dr. Morgan has won for himself a distinct place as a
teacher of the Bible. He here summarizes some of the chief
points of consideration for teacher and student. His faculty
of getting at the root of the matter is in evidence in this dis
cussion.
G. CAMPBELL MORGAN
The Bible and the Cross
i6mo, cloth, net 50c.
"The cross is an inexhaustible theme because it is the
very centre of Christianity. Dr. Morgan considers the sub
ject in the light of Bible teaching. His book is an inter
pretation of that teaching, charmingly lucid. — C. _B. World*
JAMES M. GRAY
Great Epochs of Sacred History
And the Shadows They Cast. i2mo, cloth, net 5°c.
"In modern events and tendencies the author finds the
fulfillment of sacred prophecies. He meets squarely any
question that arises and you know you are listening to a
master who is honest and devout." — Presbyterian Advance.
JOSEPH S. EXELL
The Biblical Illustrator
Each 8vo, cloth, $2.00.
Complete at last, — a great work greatly appreciated.
Hosts of ministers and teachers all over the country have
odd volumes and know their worth. An examination of any
volume will show at once the great value of this exhaustive
work. Send for Complete Circular and Special Terms,
Two New Volumes
Westminster New Testament
A Series of Pocket Commentaries, edited by Principal A.
E. Garvie, to be published in 10 vols., each, Cloth, net 75c.
The Captivity and tde Pastoral Epistles
By James Strachan, M.A.
The Revelation and the Johannine Epistles
By Alexander Ramsey, B. D.

FUTURE LIFE

J. H. JOWETT Our Blessed Dead
i6mo, boards, net 25c.
"Clearly, simply, helpfully, Dr. Jowett sets forth the mean
ing of the familiar words. — Pittsburg Christian Advocate.
J. REID HO WATT The Next Life
Light on the Worlds Beyond. i2_no, cloth, net $1.00.
"A very thoughtful and reverent seeking for light on the
worlds beyond. The study is careful and thorough. The
subjects treated are of supreme interest in this department
of thought. The spirit is Christian. The results attained
are of satisfaction to all who believe the truth of Jesus
Christ." — Herald and Presbyter.
JAMES M. GRAY
Progress in the Life to Come
i:mo, boards, net 35c.
What the Scripture has to say about Heaven and Para
dise and the state of the departed believers.
J. PATERSON-SMYTH, P.P.
The Gospel of the Hereafter
i2mo, Cloth, net $1.00.
An attempt to examine dispassionately what the Scrip
ture has to say concerning life after death. Dr. Smyth,
who is already well known for his famous book "How We
Got Our Bible/' arranges his contents In the Near Here
after and The Far Hereafter. It is a complete gath
ering into one volume of all the Scripture has to say, with
very little of surmise or of theory, and its value is pro
portionately great.
 EVANGELISTIC 
O. OLIN GREEN Normal Evangelism
i6mo, cloth, net $1.00.
"A book that ought to be read by every pastor. Not only
by; him but by the members of our churches as well. Will
stimulate any pastor to strive for the practical application
of this truth in his ministry."— Baptist Advance.
EDWIN F. EALLENBECK
The Passion for Men
rftnn clofb, net 40c.
••Gto this book to those tihat ore beginning to 0NRF
iWteuy ; give it to those that have never known the gladness
of helping a brother; and give it to the soul-winner, for it
will inspire him to better work." — C. B. World.

MISSIONARY

JULIUS RICHTER
A History of Protestant Missions in the
Near East svo, cioth, net $2.50.
A companion volume to "A History of Missions in In
dia," by this great authority. The progress of the gospel is
traced in Asia Minor, Persia, Arabia, Syria, and Egypt.
Non-sectarian in spirit, thoroughly comprehensive in scope.
JOHN P. JONES , P.P.
The Modern Missionary Challenge
Yale Lectures, igio. i_smo, cloth, net $i£o.
These lectures, by the author of "India's Problem,
Krisha or Christ?" are a re-survey of the demand of missions
in the light of progress made, in their relation to human
thought. The new difficulties, the new incentives, are con
sidered by one whose experience in the field and as a writer,
entitle him to consideration.
ALONZO BUNKER, P.P.
Sketches from the Karen Hills
Illustrated, i_mo. Cloth, net $1.00.
Ihese descriptive chapters from a missionary's life in
Burma are of exceptional vividness and rich in an appre
ciation for color. His pen pictures give not only a splendid
insight into native life,t missionary work, but have a distinc
tive literary charm which characterizes his "Soo Hiah."
JAMES F. LOVE
The Unique Message and Universal
Mission of Christianity
i_mo, cloth, net $1.25.
A volume dealing with the philosophy of missions at
once penetrating and unusual. It is perhaps one of the most
original and valuable contributions to the subject yet made.
WILLIAM EPWARP GARPNER
Winners of the World During Twenty
Centuries Adapted for Boys and Girls.
A Story and a Study of Missionary Effort from the Time o_
Paul to the Present Day. Cloth, net 60c; paper, net 30c
Children's Missionary Series
Illustrated in Colors, Cloth, Pecorated, each, net 60c.
Children of Africa. James B. Baird.
Children of Arabia. John C. Young.
Children of China. C. Campbell Brown.
Children of India. Janet Harvey Kelman.

ESSAYS, ADDRESSES, Etc.

JAMES I. VANCE
Tendency : The Effect of Trend and Drift
in the Development of Life.
i_mo, cloth, net $1.25.
"Aims primarily at helping young men so that they will
turn their lives in the right direction at the very start.
Ihese discussions are alive. They are full of suggestive
thoughts. They cannot fail to inspire. They deal with the
very conditions in which men find themselves, and they are
apt. They are bound to do good.' — C. B. World.
J. H. JOWETT The Transfigured Church
i2mo, cloth, net Si. 25.
t A truly remarkable portrayal of what the Church might
be if it fully availed itself of all the forces and powers at its
disposal. The great Birmingham preacher is seen in this vol
ume at his very best and the remarkable skill in expression,
dn clarity of thought and breadth of sympathy are manifest
on every page.
HENRY W. CLARK
Laws of the Inner Kingdom
i_mo, cloth, net $1.25.
"This is a distinctly Christian study of the laws of
spiritual life and experience. The book is thoughtful, rev
erent, sincere and scholarly and will be of profit to the
one who reads it carefully." — Journal and Messenger.
PERCY C. AINSWORTH
The Pilgrim Church and Other Sermons
i2mo, cloth, net $1.25.
Sir Robertson Nicoll says: "Every page and almost every
sentence is striking. This is a book which must inevitably
find its way into the hands of every preacher worthy of the
name and multitudes who are not preachers will find in it
the help that they need. It is truly a golden book."
W. L. WATKINSON
The Fatal Barter and Other Sermons
i2_no, cloth, net $1.00.
"Reveals the secret of the eagerness with which the au
thor is heard in his homeland and in this country, at North-
field and elsewhere. He is evangelical in his teaching, loyal
to the Scriptures, but his spirit is modern, and one of the
chief charms of his sermons is in the application of the
changeless truth to the needs and conditions of our day." —
Lutheran Observer.

0493

11

III

ill

II

'i I ll

II

I