No Yeast Allowed

God said in Leviticus 2:11, “Every grain offering you bring to the Lord must be made without yeast, for you are not to burn any yeast or honey in an offering made to the Lord by fire.” Why was no yeast allowed in the grain offerings? Yeast is a bacterial fungus or mold and is, therefore, an appropriate symbol for sin. It grows in bread dough just as sin grows in a life. Yeast or leaven sours the bread. Honey is a natural sweetener, but it too will eventually ferment and turn sour. A little yeast will affect the whole loaf, just as a little sin can sour a whole life. Yeast and honey were never to be burned as an offering on the altar where the sacrifice for atonement (redemption and salvation) was being offered to God because of what it symbolized. No substance that symbolized sin could be mixed with the perfect sacrifice that was being offered to God. The sacrifice was a symbol of the Lord Jesus Christ, the sinless and incorruptible Lamb of God who secured eternal redemption and salvation for all of us. Jesus used yeast as an example of how a small amount of evil can affect a large group of people. The wrong teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees were leading many people astray. Jesus warned them about the “yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees” in Matthew 16:12, “Then they understood that he was not telling them to guard against the yeast used in bread, but against the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” In Matthew 13:33, yeast was used positively as a symbol of growth, “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three pecks of flour until it was all leavened.” Do not allow a little habitual sin into your life. If you do, it will ruin your testimony and cause others to stumble. What yeast are you harboring inside? Ask for God’s grace and mercy to help you in your time of need, and He will.