“Then said he, Unto what is the kingdom of God like? and whereunto shall I resemble it? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and cast into his garden; and it grew, and waxed a great tree; and the fowls of the air lodged in the branches of it,” Luke 13:18-19.
I will never forget brother Jordan Khan preaching on the above brief parable in Lisbellaw Free Presbyterian Church back in 1970. Brother Khan was a visitor to Ulster from India and preached in various congregations of our denomination. He “was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and of faith.” I recall his telling us that his father was a prayer partner to ‘Praying Hyde’, John Nelson Hyde (November 9, 1865 – February 17, 1912) an American missionary who preached in the Punjab state in India.
Jordan Khan’s exposition was an early warning of what, some 30-40 years later began to take place within the Free Presbyterian Church.
Please note from this parable:
I. THE TRUE WORK OF GOD HAS VERY SMALL AND HUMBLE BEGINNINGS!
“Unto what is the kingdom of God like? and whereunto shall I resemble it? It is like a grain of mustard seed.”
1. The greatest period of blessing and expansion in this New Testament age began with a small group of men and women meeting in prayer. “And when they were come in, they went up into an upper room, where abode both Peter, and James, and John, and Andrew, Philip, and Thomas, Bartholomew, and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon Zelotes, and Judas the brother of James. These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren,” Acts 1:13-14. We are told that earlier when they gathered in this same room: “Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews,” John 20:19.
The early days of the apostolic church were indeed days of humble and trembling beginnings.
They were days of clinging to the Lord for mercy and help in the face of the opposition of men stirred up by the devil.
2. Some are still alive within the ranks of the Free Presbyterian Church who will recall the early days in the 1950s when the opposition of our ecumenical opponents was most vicious. I wonder how many know that a godly founding member of Ballymoney Free Presbyterian Church was assaulted and beaten by an ecumenical Presbyterian minister and some of his henchmen?
This spirit was still very much alive in the 1960s. My late wife, Ann, a graduate from Queen’s University, Belfast, was unable to obtain a teaching position because she was a Free Presbyterian. Often times, once it was known that she was a Free Presbyterian, the interview was abruptly ended.
Enniskillen Collegiate School
On one occasion she was contacted by the Principal of Enniskillen Collegiate School regarding a post as a French teacher. The school had contacted QUB, asking if they had any graduates on their books who had not yet obtained a teaching position and would be free to accept their offer. QUB gave them my wife’s name. She was duly contacted and an interview arranged. The Principal was most happy to offer her the post of French teacher and even introduced her to some of the staff as the new teacher! During a friendly discussion over a cup of tea afterwards, the Principal noticed Ann’s engagement ring, for this was in the later part of 1967 and we were not married until March 1968. When she discovered who it was she was engaged to, the Principal said that she was sure it would not matter.
However, Ann was later contacted by the Principal and told that despite teaching appointments normally being left in her hands, the Board of Governors had rejected her recommendation and rejected Ann’s appointment! That was after the school had sought her out!
On another occasion, some years later, she was rejected again, this time by Enniskillen High School. However, the Principal followed her out of the interview room and kindly said to Ann, ‘Mrs Foster, you will never get a teaching position in the Western Education Board area because of who you are. I suggest that you put you name down in the neighbouring Southern Area Board as a substitute teacher.’
That man was Mr Ronnie Hill who in 1987 was a victim of the IRA ‘Poppy Day Bomb’ in Enniskillen. He was left in a coma and died some 13 years later, having never regained consciousness.
Advice
Ann acted upon his advice and submitted her name to the Southern Area Education Board. A short time later she was contacted by the Fivemiltown High School principal and asked if she would accept a temporary post as a French teacher. After prayer Ann agreed. That would have been in April 1974.
The head of the French department in the school was Miss Eva Martin. Tragically, Eva Martin, a part-time member of the Ulster Defence Regiment, was murdered by the IRA on May 2nd.
As a result, Ann was required to take on extra duties in the school.
As the end of the school year drew near, she was again approached by the principal, this time she was asked if she would take a permanent teaching post. Again, after prayer, Ann agreed to letting him put her name forward.
The Board of Governors, which included a leading local Orangeman, rejected her and appointed a Roman Catholic from Newry, who was not a teacher of French, to the post.
As it turned out a local Ulster Unionist Councillor, unknown to either Ann or myself, organised parents at the school and they threatened a boycott if the decision was not reversed.
However, providence intervened! The Newry teacher contacted the school to say that she was rejecting the post as she was offered a position in a Roman Catholic school in Newry.
Ann, in accordance with the rules then in force, was automatically appointed to the post.
It was out of the subsequent experience and knowledge of the corruption within the state school system and its curriculum that she was led of the Lord to pioneer the first Free Presbyterian Christian school in Kilskeery in September 1979.
This is but a small example of the spirit of animosity and hatred faced by Free Presbyterians in the past. Such was in common with the experience of God’s people throughout the ages when the Lord began to work amongst them.
II. IT IS TO BE NOTED ALSO THAT THE BEGINNINGS OF A WORK OF GOD MAY APPEAR TO HAVE MOST INSIGNIFICANT BEGINNINGS!
“It is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and cast into his garden.”
1. In Matthew’s record of this parable he adds significant words. “Which indeed is the least of all seeds.” Mark likewise adds such words. It “is less than all the seeds that be in the earth.” That from which the work of God springs is likened by the Saviour unto a most insignificant seed. It is “the least of all seeds.”
That is how men perceive the beginnings of any work of God. The enemies of Israel said of the work of rebuilding the broken down walls of Jerusalem, supervised by Nehemiah: “But it came to pass, that when Sanballat heard that we builded the wall, he was wroth, and took great indignation, and mocked the Jews. And he spake before his brethren and the army of Samaria, and said, What do these feeble Jews? will they fortify themselves? will they sacrifice? will they make an end in a day? will they revive the stones out of the heaps of the rubbish which are burned? Now Tobiah the Ammonite was by him, and he said, Even that which they build, if a fox go up, he shall even break down their stone wall,” Nehemiah 4:1-3.
The beginnings of the Free Presbyterian Church in Crossgar in 1951 was likewise despised. The ‘Belfast Telegraph’ prophesied that it would soon come to nothing and disappear!
Of course it didn’t. In the 60s and 70s especially, it was an instrument for much good in our province and many, many souls were converted and new congregations formed, chiefly under the gospel labours of Dr Ian Paisley, back then a man endued with Holy Ghost power.
2. Oftentimes the work of God seems to be born out of very insubstantial beginings. “A grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and cast into his garden.” The word ‘cast’ suggests an act that appears to be almost a careless, perfunctory act.
So may men judge the actions of God and see little significance in what He does. The birth of the ‘babe’ in Bethlehem did not make ‘headlines’, though it was seen in heaven as a most wonderful and glorious event.
“And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men,” Luke 2:8-14.
During His ministry amongst men few considered the Saviour as a person of any importance!
“The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven. And they said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? how is it then that he saith, I came down from heaven?” John 6:41-42.
Such a perception of the Saviour was prophesied by Isaiah.
“Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not,” Isaiah 53:1-3.
John the Baptist was considered as ‘one crying in the wilderness.’ Dr John Gill translates the word crying as ‘lowing like an ox’. Yet John was making the most significant announcement that a human voice has ever made. “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” “He that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire:
Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” “He must increase, but I must decrease.” (Matthew 3:3, 11-12; John 3:30).
3. But from such insignificant beginnings, there has sprung the greatest heavenly organisation the world has ever seen. The tiny mustard seed became a great tree, says Christ in the parable.
The opponents of the gospel were forced to concede: “Now when the high priest and the captain of the temple and the chief priests heard these things, (the divine release from prison of the apostles) they doubted of them whereunto this would grow,” Acts 5:24.
The impact of Christ and the preaching of the gospel by the apostles was acknowledged by the heathen. “These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also,” Acts 17:6.
That is a wonderful description of the impact of the gospel!
Daniel foretold the final development of ‘the mustard seed’! “And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever,” Daniel 2:44.
So too did Isaiah: “Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this,” Isaiah 9:7.
III. BUT THE SAVIOUR INDICATED THAT A MOST UNWELCOME OCCURRENCE WOULD TAKE PLACE
“It grew, and waxed a great tree; and the fowls of the air lodged in the branches of it.” An invasion takes place! Alien life appears within its branches. “The fowls of the air” is a most ominous term for these ‘invaders’!
Another parable speaks of these fowls and what they represent. “And it came to pass, as he sowed, some fell by the way side, and the fowls of the air came and devoured it up. . . . And these are they by the way side, where the word is sown; but when they have heard, Satan cometh immediately, and taketh away the word that was sown in their hearts,” Mark 4:4, 15.
These are the devil’s agents. He has sent his ‘infiltrators’ to corrupt the work of the gospel!
There is no greater portrayal of this ‘alien invasion’ than that given by Jude.
“Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ,” Jude 1:3-4.
The presence of the birds in the mustard tree would ‘befoul’ the branches, a depiction of the impact of those ‘evil invaders’ spoken of by Jude.
Very shortly, there will be ungodly ‘celebrations’, involving the most gross excesses of wicked behaviour requiring a severe increase in the labours of those charged with keeping ‘law and order’ on our streets. That which occasions this upsurge in evil is the supposed ‘marking of the birth of Christ’!
“Christmas”, as it is called, is an annual blasphemous mocking of the coming of Christ into this world by the adopting of a pagan feast of ancient times and ‘christianising’ it and presenting it as a holy celebration, marked and promoted by the apostate denominations and those believers more interested in fleshly pleasures than the truth of God.
(I have removed the picture that I had published in this article in order to illustrate the shameless immodesty that has become accepted amongst some Free Presbyterians.
I have no wish to exacerbate the difficulties that this objectionable display created for some not in sympathy with such immodesty. The Editor)
Christ was not born on 25th December but rather in the month of August, when sheep would still be in the fields of Israel. By a simple process of noting the times of the conception and birth of John the Baptist and the birth of Christ, six months later, as given us in Luke chapter one, we will see clearly that the birth of Christ took place in the Autumn and not in the dead of winter!
This is but one of the very obvious influences wrought by the devil’s agents. Paul states: “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils,” 1 Timothy 4:1. This is another form of the same warning given by the Saviour in the parable of the ‘Mustard Seed’.
Today
What of today? I have referred to the blessed times our church experienced back in the 1960s and 1970s. Is there any evidence of that happening to us as the Saviour indicated? Have there been any ‘fowls’ taking up a roost in our branches?
Without any hesitation I say yes!
Christ’s depiction of what the devil does when he sees a move of God, is true of our days as it was of the days of Jude and the other apostles who warned against the arrival of the devil’s agents!
There have been attacks upon the standards of God, set down in His Word, as embraced by our Free Presbyterian forefathers. Numerous attempts have been made to undermine those standards and have them dismissed as the ‘only rule of faith and practice’ for today.
I have protested against the behaviour witnessed at Free Presbyterian functions and the erroneous things taught in the pulpits and in print for many years now.
There has not been any real effort made to combat these wrongs by those whose duty before God is to guard the church from such.
It is commonly alleged that there are ‘cliques’ within the church which exercise an influence that is unlawful and unholy.
This should not surprise anyone for the Saviour very clearly says that such will be so. However, he does not tell us this in order for us to roll over and allow it to happen but rather for us to go out and ‘dislodge’ the fowls of the air from the branches!
I remember as a youngster, helping my mother dislodge some of our hens that had flown up into trees at dusk rather than enter the henhouse for the night. She used a very long stick to ‘shoo’ the hens down.
God would have use a sword, “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” rather than a stick to dislodge these invasive fowls!
Paul sets out the duties of ministers and elders in this matter.
“Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation. Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever. Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines. For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace; not with meats, which have not profited them that have been occupied therein,” Hebrews 13:7-9.
In a day when attempts are made to introduce strange and innovative doctrines and those making such attempts have had some measure of success in places where carelessness and error dominate, let our pulpits ring out with “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.”
Only then will the rising generation avoid being “carried about with divers and strange doctrines” and the mustard tree be preserved from ruination!
Rev Ivan Foster (Rtd)
2nd December 2024