A few days ago I noted that when Jesus compares false teaching to leaven, He is requiring His ministers to exhibit high levels of discernment (Matt. 16:6). Earlier in Matthew, He had told us to guard against wolves in sheep’s clothing (Matt. 7:15) — an image that certainly requires vigilance and courage, but not quite as much discernment. When dealing with a wolf in wool, the entire wolf is already there and needs only to be revealed, and then fought.
Leaven is different. A wolf is a wolf, but not all leaven-carriers are leaven themselves. Some create the leaven on purpose, others transmit it knowingly, some unknowingly, others yet are insufficiently on guard against it, some see the problem and raise a hue and a cry against it in such a manner as to make themselves and all their friends ridiculous, and a mere handful see the problem, and fight it in all wisdom. When you are saying that the leaven, if not resisted, will do such and such, you are talking about something that has not yet occurred. Your concern is the future which no one can see. And yet Jesus tells us to be concerned about the future course of false teaching.
It gets more difficult. As the leaven advances, this does create the hard evidence that has thus far been missing. But at the same time it simultaneously renders everybody incapable of seeing that evidence. The future effects of leaven were invisible because they had not yet happened. The present effects of leaven are invisible because the people on whom the leaven has been working are rendered incapable of seeing it. So the more proof you have, the less the people have eyes that can see that proof. This is what is called a judicial stupor. It can be called a judicial stupor when people are not only judged for their inability to see, but rather are judged by God with an inability to see. The time comes when “God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie” (2 Thess. 2:11).
People are not disinterested readers of evidence. People live in communities, and these communities are either under the judgment of God or they are not. For a society to be under judgment, this means that they are given over to a spirit of delusion. As societies come under increasing judgment, they have shifting centers of acceptability, and only lies are acceptable. As those centers of acceptability move inexorably toward perdition’s edge, the closer the cliff gets, the harder is it to see.
This process happens in churches, in denominations, in personal relationships, and in civil societies. Early in the process you are a voice crying in the wilderness. Late in the process you are a voice crying in the asylum, where they locked you up for speaking the truth in irritating ways.
All this said, the prophetess of our age, the one who speaks from deep within the pomogroove, is Jezebel (Rev. 2:20). Buchan once wrote a fantastic short story called “The Grove of Ashtaroth.” We need a modern Tishbite to come and help us cut down the Groove of Ashtaroth.