Here we have that which we are told is the least of all seeds, growing into a tree, and the fowls of the air lodging in its branches. This presents to us the pretentious character of Christendom, for the Kingdom of Heaven and Christendom are identical until the Lord comes for His Church, when the Kingdom will take a different character, or rather it will not then be modified by the truth of this present Church dispensation.
The Church of Rome, with its papal arrogance, its display of worldly pomp and glory, its ceaseless scheming after world-empire, affords a good example of this pretension, though all, who forget that, till Christ gets His place, the Christian has no place in the world save that of “stranger or pilgrim,” evidence in greater or lesser measure the same thing.