In Matthew chapter 13 Jesus is speaking to not merely a multitude, not even to multitudes, but to “GREAT MULTITUDES OF PEOPLE” (vs 11). For someone wanting to get a message out to the largest number of people, this was the ideal situation. Great multitudes had come to Him from different areas of the nation. He would not have many opportunities like this. The people would take His message back to their home areas and share it with others. What an excellent opportunity to spread His Truth to the masses.

And yet, He deliberately passed up the opportunity to spread His singular message of the kingdom to the masses (Mat. 4:23; 9:35). Instead, He spoke to the people in parables which, as He told His disciples in verse 11, would PREVENT them from understanding “the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven” (vss 10,11). He told His disciples that they would understand the kingdom mysteries which concerned the formation and operation of the church they would be instrumental in founding. However, not everyone who would be a part of that church would be His people, as the parables He had just spoken pointed out. Notice that Jesus sent the multitudes away without telling them anything they could understand about the soon-to-be-formed Church of God (Acts 20:28)–the Biblical name for His ONE AND ONLY CHURCH.

In Romans 16:15 the expression “churches of Christ” is used to denote those spiritual bodies of which Christ was, and is the Head. Note that in First Thessalonians 2:14 they are also called the “churches of God.” Read First Corinthians 1:2; 10:32; 11:22; 15:9/ Second Corinthians 1:1; First Timothy 3:5,15 and First Thessalonians 2:14. Nowhere in God’s Word are we told to call God’s true church anything but the name Christ and the apostles used to identify it–the CHURCH OF GOD. God’s true church is not to be confused with the denomination that calls itself by that name. Like all other Protestant and Catholic organizations, they are His churches in name only. All of the other man-formulated names used by those organizations that call themselves “the church” signify that those cults belong to man, not God, and operate according to man’s desires, not His expressed will. Each of those cults was founded by a man and operate according to that man’s version of what God should have written in His Book of Truths. As this website proclaims loud, clear and repeatedly, the so-called “church” does not operate according to the will of God, Whose will is made clear in His Holy Bible.

Since 31 A.D. billions of people have “joined THE church,” have believed what they were taught by the leaders of “the church” and have “known beyond a shadow of a doubt” that they were saved, born again and rapture-ready, etc.–NOT ONE WORD OF WHICH IS SCRIPTURALLY TRUE. Today approximately three billion people are part of that Satanic trap because they do not know the Word of God, do not believe all of what little they know and obey very little of what they believe. These are harsh words, but there is no other way to express the attitude of Christ Who used much harsher words those. For example, He told a group of people who “believed in Him” that their spiritual father was “the devil” (Jn. 8:31,40-47). How is this possible? We are told that we need only believe in Jesus as our Savior and we are saved on the spot, and that the Biblical God is automatically our spiritual Father. So why did Jesus tell those who believed that He was the Son of God that their father was Satan? Because they REJECTED HIS MESSAGE.

Today, the vast majority of people in “the church,” like those people, “believe in Him.” But like them, today’s believers reject His message. The religious masses embrace Him as their Savior, but not as their Lord, which would require them to obey His Words. However, there is a tiny group, which Christ calls His “remnant,” who do believe and obey what He has written in His Holy Bible. Which brings us to the focus of this series–the mustard seed, the trees, the birds and their nests (“lodgings”).

In Matthew 13:31,32 Jesus compared the kingdom of heaven (His church) to a mustard seed that, in its original form, is tiny, the “least of all seeds.” However, as time goes by the seed sprouts, expands and grows much larger, becoming “the largest of all herbs” which He called a “tree” in which birds lodge–build their nests. I

I had taught on this subject several times and understood what Christ was saying. Then He did what He sometimes does to make a particular subject more real to me. The mustard seed parable was one such subject. I know what birds do to trees in which they congregate and build their nests–they fill it and the ground under it with poop. This was made even more clear when I found that a bird had built her nest in a flower pot that hung from the ceiling of our front porch. What I learned from that experience added a new level of reality to what I already knew.

The mother bird soon laid her eggs. My great grandson and I watched and waited for the eggs to hatch. After they hatched we watched as momma fed her little ones and listened to the music of their chirping. Then the inevitable began to take place–those beautiful little darlings began to poop, and poop, and poop. As the poop piled up it began to flow over the sides of the nest. Before I knew it, the flowerpot was overflowing with poop which began falling out of the pot and onto the floor. What a mess. From that experience I realized more clearly what Jesus was telling me in the mustard seed parable. He was comparing what the “birds” (false Christians) were being taught (poop) and in turn teach others, and how their false prophets were spreading their false gospel throughout the world. He was also showing me how destructive their poop messages were to those who heard and believed them.

The poop (technically–“feces”) is symbolic of Catholic/Protestant doctrines which use just enough of God’s Truth to appear legitimate to the Biblically unlearned. Jesus warned about this problem in Matthew 24:4,5 where He told us to beware of false prophets who would come in His name and confirm that He (Jesus) was indeed the Christ. Then, having gained our trust, they would preach a false Gospel by which they would “deceive many.” Admittedly, I was one of those deceived ones. for many years.

In Matthew 13:31,32 Jesus compares God’s true church to a tiny mustard seed which would grow into a “tree.” Here He was warning His true saints about what would take place over time. He was telling us that Satan would infiltrate the church and turn it into a haven for all kinds of “birds” (religious organizations) which would spread their various “gospels” (poop) throughout the world while proclaiming it to be God’s Gospel. As there are many kinds of birds, there are many different denominations (cults), each with its own type of feces, better known as “church doctrine.” Each “nest” (church) is filled with such religious feces which its patrons carry out with them each sun god day (Sunday) after having dined on the false Gospel provided by their particular minister. This Satanic attack on God’s church had already claimed many victims by the time the Apostle Paul came on the scene. He speaks to this Truth in his letter to the Galatians in verses six through nine of the first chapter. Over the past 2000 years as the church has grown and spread, Satan’s control over her has increased in scope and power to the point that he now controls absolute dominance over her doctrines and practices.

Because of the popularity of Satan’s false Gospel, God’s “mustard seed” sized, singular body having one name, one Gospel, one God, one Truth, one Christ and one faith has grown into a “tree sized” religious monster made up of hundreds of various conflicting, competing, contradicting “nests” out of which flows hundreds of different “truths” which honor hundreds of different Gods, Christs, doctrines, etc. Read First Corinthians 12:12-20/ Rom. 12:5 and Eph. 4:4-6. Today Jesus says to the people in those religious “nests,” “You honor Me with your lips, but your heart (mind) is far from Me” (Mk. 7:6). Jesus tells them that while they use His name, they are in fact worshiping their false saviors who allow them to make their own rules–denominational doctrines. This is the gift of Eden’s Serpent that brought about the downfall of Adam and Eve.

As Jesus tells us in Matthew 7:13,14 and 22:14, God’s true church remains tiny (the “strait gate”) while the false church has grown huge (the “wide gate”). As God tells us elsewhere in the Holy Scriptures, He has only ONE CHURCH AND ONE GOSPEL. All others are counterfeit churches founded on perverted gospels (Gal. 1:6-9) proclaimed by “another Jesus.” (2 Cor. 11:4) which each church has embraced. In the case of the hundreds of churches that make up counterfeit Christianity, there are an equal number of counterfeit christs, gods, truths, etc. Ironically, all of those “churches” claim to be following the same Christ and the same Gospel. Only Satan could orchestrate this catastrophe. L.J.