YEAST |
Frank B. Smith, Director, PO Box 3009, Vista, CA. 92085-3009 |
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While attending seminary, I worked several different jobs at a large bakery. One of them was as the night watchman. The process of making bread began shutting down on Friday, and started again very early on Sunday morning. By early evening on Saturday, a watchman was necessary as for a few hours the bakery was empty of all workers. The men who mixed the dough were the first arrivals to begin the process again. My time as the watchman overlapped with them, and I would spend as much time as possible watching them, fascinated with their work. The mixing room was the highest point in the bakery. They mixed the ingredients in a giant mixer. It looked something like a typical kitchen appliance, only much larger. Instead of cups of flour, they added so many hundred-pound sacks of regular flour, and perhaps two hundred pounds of cracked wheat or whatever. The yeast was broken up by hand and added in large blocks with cold water. When the ingredients were blended together, the mixing bowl was tipped and the dough dumped into a large vat on wheels about ten feet long and three feet wide. Then they wheeled it into the rising room. This rising room was warm and moist and had room for several of these vats of dough. The bakers had a tool that looked like a combination of a baseball bat and an oar. Whenever the baker wheeled in a new vat, he took the tool and beat the dough in the previous vats. Initially the yeast would rise up in just a few places, but each successive time there were more spots that were leavened. Every time a new vat entered, the previous ones were beaten, hammered, or abused with the special tool until the mixture of dough was without the evidence of the yeast. When the dough finished its time in the rising room, the vat was wheeled to a chute where a machine tipped the dough down to the next process. The air was again squeezed out and the dough separated into loaf-sized lumps that dropped down to the main floor of the bakery. There they traveled along a conveyor belt for three or four trips across the ceiling while the yeast continued to rise. The lumps were dropped on to another belt, flattened by rollers, rolled up like a log and then dropped into the actual baking pans. This was another of my jobs at the bakery. I stood at the end of the conveyer that brought the filled pans to me. On my right side was a large rack suspended from the ceiling. Click, click, click, click, click went on for hours. Every fourth click meant a full pan that I had to put on the rack. When the rack was full, I pushed it along and pulled the next one into place. The filled racks went through another rising room, and from there into the ovens. Years later when the Lord was instructing me about the nature of church, He reminded me of all this and used it as a parable for the church. Like the ingredients for bread dough, the Master Baker’s ingredients for the Kingdom of God are the Father’s love, the Son’s obedience and sacrifice, and the Spirit’s power poured out. Forty days after His resurrection from the dead, Jesus ascended into heaven. Ten days later, He was crowned King of Kings and Lord of Lords. The anointing oil was poured out on Him and ran down His head, over His Body, even unto His Body on the earth. The Kingdom of Heaven began to spread with power. Three thousand “joined” the church that day as they died with Jesus on the cross in the waters of baptism. Soon it was five thousand more. Daily those who were being saved were added to the church. I have a mental picture of God looking at this with a huge smile on His face. He says something like, “This is wonderful.” And then He takes his hand like the special tool of the bakers and swats the churning, living, growing church in Jerusalem with persecution. Then the yeast pops up in Samaria, Antioch, Ethiopia, and throughout the Roman Empire. After the right amount of time, our smiling, loving King does it (or allows it to happen) again, and again, and again. And so, for two thousand years the process has been going on throughout the whole earth. We call some of these phenomenon, Reformations, Revivals, Renewals, but as my friend Pat Savas (A Nun Called Gus) says, “We know that there is not going to be a REvival, or a RE anything. (God isn't into Repeats)” This is the yeast working all through the dough. This is the rock from Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of Daniel 2, becoming a mountain and filling the whole world. Now, once in a while, ahead of time, we are privileged to be in one of those “hot spots” where the fermenting yeast makes us drunk with the glory of God. The “hot spots” are increasing in number, geography, and magnitude. When you are in one, it is not “as if” heaven were touching earth, we are literally lifted into the heavenlies and experience a foretaste of true worship and adoration. I remember Ern Baxter telling us of a “revival” meeting in Vancouver in the ‘50’s. He said the glory of God was present so thick a cloud formed; and the music was spectacular. He was standing by the pianist who took his hands off the keyboard and quit playing. Ern asked him why he stopped playing and he answered, “Those notes aren’t on this piano.” Similar experiences happened a hundred years ago at Azusa Street, in Wales, among the Welch, and at various times sprinkled here and there. It continues to this day, always increasing in numbers of happenings and always drawing closer to the biblical pattern of church of the city. The yeast is working. I recall the glories of some of our worship times in the hay day of the Shepherding movement. At a meeting in the civic auditorium in Mobile Alabama, Joe Garlington was leading and we were speechless – all we could do was wave our hands. The power and glory of God that filled Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City in 1977 was palpable. The worship and ministry times at the early Vineyard Gatherings and John Wimber Seminars were a literal taste of heaven. This awesome glory seems to fit comfortably in huge gatherings, but it happens in small, intimate church meetings in homes and work places. It is exploding today throughout the earth. Asbury College, Toronto, Brownsville, Pasadena, Redding, and in China, Mexico, Australia, Cuba, Uganda, Pakistan, etc. etc., the leaven works, the kingdom comes, and the church grows closer to its full expression city by city. Sometimes the persecution drives it underground and further into the life stream of unsaved humanity. But, at all times, in all situations, the yeast keeps working. Some of the reactions when the yeast meets the dough are bizarre or weird, but it is always working, growing, spreading. The zeal of the Lord Almighty is accomplishing this.[1] The enemy tries to discredit God’s work and conjures up counterfeit happenings. He is anxious to keep us divided and impotent, but the yeast keeps on leavening the dough. Satan’s time on earth grows shorter. His days are running out and he frantically, unsuccessfully spews the filth out of his mouth to overwhelm us. The dragon is enraged, but we overcome him by the blood of the lamb, the word of our testimony, and not shrinking from death.[2] The yeast is working. |