Alright, "The Kingdom Parables", this is lesson number seven in this series. The title of
this lesson "Parable of the Wheat and Tares". And if you're following along in your Bibles
we will be in Matthew chapter 13.
So this week and next week we're going to be actually completing our series. We have one more lesson after
this one. We did say in the past, that these were teachings designed,
these teachings on the kingdom parables, were designed to do a couple of things.
First of all, to explain the nature of the spiritual kingdom that Jesus came to establish.
Each week, if you've noted, we've studied various characteristics of the kingdom by looking at the
parables that Jesus used in order to describe it. This is the
manner in which he used to describe His kingdom.
Also it was a device used to separate the believers from the unbelievers.
By using parables, Jesus would teach publicly to crowds of people.
But, as we've mentioned before, only those who believed in him would actually
understand the meaning of these sayings and how they
pertained to themselves and the other people who were listening.
So it was a coding device that He used. And He even described this and
explained this to His apostles when they asked. In many instances Jesus would
give the parable and then, when his disciples would press him, he'd provide the
meaning for them. Not all, but in some instances. And we have an
example of one such parable in the wheat and the tares.
The parable we're going to be looking at today. Now, this parable follows
the one concerning the sower and the seed, where Jesus is using agricultural
examples to teach about the kingdom.
By its proximity to the first parable, the sower and the seed,
by its proximity to that particular parable, the one on the wheat and the tares, may
have been the second parable that Jesus spoke during his ministry. Remember last time we
said sower and seed, we believe that may have been the very first one that He spoke,
this one here, the second one. So let's go to Matthew Chapter 13
and read through this and see what the Lord is teaching us.
So we begin verse 24. "Jesus presented another parable
to them, saying, 'the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed
good seed in his field." So the parable is about the kingdom. It's not about
the world because he begins it by saying "the kingdom of heaven is like".
Right?
It takes place and describes events in the kingdom and that's important to
remember. A lot of people sometimes make that mistake, take this information where Jesus is
saying "the kingdom of heaven is like" and somehow they tried to apply this to life in the
world. And it doesn't fit.
It doesn't match. He's not saying the world is like. He's saying the kingdom
of heaven is like this. So we have to always keep that in context. Verse 25.
"But while his men were sleeping his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat
and went away." Tares or darnel, weed like
grass that resembles wheat but actually has a more firm root system.
The land owner sews good wheat and while the laborers are sleeping the darnel, the
tears are sown by his enemy. Pretty straightforward story so far. "But when the
wheat sprouted and bore grain, then the tares became evident also." So the fact
that the tares had been sown only became evident when both began to grow.
So, things are going on in the kingdom that you don't always see.
We've understood that and sometimes those things that are going on are not
necessarily positive.
Verse 27. "The slaves of the landowner came and said to Jesus,
'Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?'
So the workers question the possibility of their being tares among the wheat.
How could this be so? They know they didn't do it.
This is a controlled area where they are working, specifically.
So their... We didn't do this. Who did this?
And so the owner begins to give them the reason why this is so.
In verse 28, "He says to them, 'An enemy has done this!'
The slaves said to him, 'Do you want us, then, to go and gather them up? But
he said, 'No; for while you are gathering up the tares you may uproot the wheat with them."
Remember I said the tares, this type of growth here, has a
firm root structure, more firm actually than the wheat.
And so in verse 29, he says,
while you're gathering up the tares you may up root the wheat with them. So the workers want to
identify and remove the tares but the owner tells them to allow both of
them to grow side by side until full maturity. Remember the story in this sequence.
There's going to be meaning to this later on.
Now in the case of the tares, their close and strong roots, as I mentioned,
might serve to damage the good plants, if they were to be torn out.
Also they resemble the good crop and so the good plants
could be torn up by mistake as well. And so in verse 30,
the parable continues with the owner saying, "Allow both to grow
together until the harvest; and in the time of the harvest I will say to the
reapers, 'First gather up the tares and bind them in bunches to burn
them up; but gather the wheat into my barn.'" So the owner instructs the
workers to wait until the harvest when it will be easier to separate the good from the bad.
And they will deal with each accordingly, one for keeping, the other for burning.
Sounds familiar to a lot of the other parables right? There is a day of reckoning that's going to come.
And there's a day of separation that's going to come. It's not as if they're so mysterious, these
parables, they tend to repeat the same story line,
different framework however. So then there is the explanation of the
parable in verses 36 to 43. So like the parable of the sower and the
seed, there's a break in the story, where Jesus, in this case,
gives another parable and reasons why he spoke in parables. We've talked
about this at another time. So we pick up the story then in 36,
verse 36, so let's read that.
It says, "Then He", meaning, now we're talking about Jesus, "Then He left the crowds
and went into the house. And His disciples came to Him and said, 'Explain to us
the parable of the tares of the field.' So apparently
after going out into the boat, remember we talked about that last time, after
going out into the boat, He taught several parables and then returned from the shore
back into his family home.
This is when the disciples come and ask for an explanation of the parable of the tares
and the wheat. So Jesus had spoken another parable about the
mustard seed and they did not ask about this particular parable.
Perhaps the parable that contained a judgment stirred them to ask
for an explanation, because the mustard seed is mostly good news with the mustard seed.
We'll talk about that later. The birds find shelter and it's a happy story, with a happy ending.
Here, again, there's a reckoning and so the Apostles are
curious about this reckoning and what all of this may mean. So let's keep going. Verse 37,
He said, "The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man,
and the field is the world; and as for the good seed,
these are the sons of the kingdom; and the tares are the sons of the evil one; and
the enemy who sowed them is the devil, and the harvest is the end of the age;
and the reapers are the angels."
So Jesus gives a quick rundown of the characters in the parable and who they
represent in real life.
Jesus himself, He says, is the sower and He refers to Himself
as the Son of Man. Interesting. This explanation, this term, "Son of Man",
first seen in Daniel Chapter 7 verse 13,
where Daniel is seeing a vision that represents the end of the world where God
gives to this quote "Son of man" all the dominion and authority
and establishes His kingdom forever. And so in Daniel's
vision the Son of Man refers to the Messiah to come.
Jesus, He rarely used the term "king" when he talked about himself.
He never talked about himself as "the king". I mean, he was King
of Kings, Lord of... you never hear him talk to himself or talk about himself
using the term "king" or "Messiah". Indirectly he says that to
the woman at the well, "that person who is to come, the Messiah. I am He."
But He still doesn't actually use the word in relationship
to Himself because these terms were heavy with meaning
for the Jews which were not necessarily accurate.
When you said the word "Messiah" to the Jews of those days many of them saw a
worldly leader, coming with great
power, coming somehow to restore Israel to some sort of political or world power.
And so to use that term would perhaps be engendering in their
minds, a worldly leader making him some sort of great powerful individual.
So Jesus uses this Old Testament term
for Himself because it did two things in particular.
First, it was a scriptural term referring to the Messiah and his work and the kingdom.
So He was accurately referring to Himself but using an obscure term that
didn't... it wasn't a word that would create
any type of strong reaction.
And then secondly, it was not a term as I say, that the Jews had ever
used or invested any kind of meaning either good or bad.
So it was an honest scriptural way to refer to Himself,
truthfully, accurately, as to who he was.
But it wasn't a baited word, it wasn't a word that would cause his listeners to
to riot or to question. So he uses this term,
"Son of Man", to refer to himself in an obscure way as the Messiah
and to put into context the things that he will say
about the Kingdom and its future. So he uses a term that means Messiah
but has not been polluted by worldly ideas. So much for
the "Son of Man" term that he uses. Then he goes on to
say the field is the world itself. The seed of the Kingdom is planted all
over the world by Jesus. The good news,
excuse me, the good seed are the sons of the kingdom. Now before
the seed was God's Word.
In the parable, the seed is not
God's word but it is eventually what God's word produces,
Christians, those who make up the kingdom. So from parable to parable the same
words don't always mean the same thing. So the sorrow and the seed, the seed was the word.
Here, the wheat and the tares, the seed are people.
The end result of what happens when the seed is planted
in a good heart. The tares are the sons of the devil, the ones who have believed
Satan and follow him,
whether they know it or not. So it reminds me of the
song by Bob Dylan long ago when he went through his Christian phase. Did you know that?
Bob Dylan went through a phase where he considered himself a born again Christian and he wrote a song
and the song was "You've Gotta Serve Somebody". And it was
interesting in his song, absolutely accurate biblically, you've got to serve somebody.
You're either going to serve the Lord or you're going to serve the devil.
That's the only choice that you have.
And in the song he talks about you can knowingly serve the Lord or you can knowingly serve the
devil. You could also unknowingly serve the devil because you refused
to serve the Lord.
Very interesting and concise way of explaining a Christian's choice in life.
And so here Jesus talks about the sons of the devil, the ones who have believed Satan and
follow him, whether they know it or not. If you don't follow
Jesus then you do follow Satan whether you're aware of that or not.
The tares are sown. Now here's the interesting part.
The tares are sown where? In the kingdom. In the kingdom.
Who are they? Well, they're the hypocrites who talk like Christians but they don't act like Christians.
They're the spies who are with the people in the kingdom but only there because it
suits their purpose. What is their purpose? Who knows, money, prestige of
some kind, comfort.
Their the backsliders, they're the sinners who have begun to be
influenced more by Satan and the world than Christ and His Word.
But they go through the motions.
Again, I've mentioned this before, we ought not to be surprised that...
We have a sign on 23rd, it says "sinners are
welcome at the Church of Christ." And we say that because we're trying to tell
people, hey, we're not holier than thou. We're not trying to prove that we're
better than other people. If you realize that you're a sinner you're welcome among us.
Why? Well, that's all we have here. All we have are sinners, converted
forgiven, restored, renewed, regenerated, that's the
one thing everybody shares in common. I was a sinner. I was lost.
Now I'm saved. That's what the sign says. Now sinners are welcome
but they're not welcome to just remain sinners, remain
unrepentant, remain unbelieving. We start there but we want you to move.
We want you to move forward. So the influence that
produces these evil and wicked ones, the parable says, is the devil.
Just as the word has the power to create a Christian and transform
him or her into Christ likeness. Satan and his
deceptive ways also have the power to transform people into evil
and unbelieving individuals as well.
In our society today we're having problems believing in evil. I mean how many
people have to... What do people have to do to prove that there is evil in the world.
We haven't watched the videos, thankfully, but we know they're out there, of
innocent people being hacked to death simply because they believe in Jesus or
simply because they refuse to believe in a particular religion or
point of view of that religion.
Well, if that's not evil I don't know what is.
People who abduct children and torture and kill them,
is there another word for that? Is there another way... how...
What other words do you have to describe that type of behavior but evil?
And so long ago, Jesus is saying, not only is there evil in the world, there's even evil
in the kingdom. It's not tolerated. It's not wanted. It's not desired.
But you may be sitting next to someone who may be saying I believe in
Jesus in words but in their actions and their life
are not reflective of that.
Then he says the harvest is when Jesus returns at the end of the world as we know
it will take place. The reapers, the workers who separate, He says, angels, messengers.
Paul the Apostle said that the angels will have
a voice at the end of the world and will accompany the Lord. First Thessalonians Chapter 4 verse 16.
He also says they will come in flaming fire at the end,
referring to judgment. Second Thessalonians chapter 1 verse 7.
So he's given a rundown as to who the
characters are, giving a little information about the key people and
situations in the parable. So he goes on in verse 40 He says,
"So just as the tares are gathered up and burned with fire,
so shall it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man," there's His
reference once again, "will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of
His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness,"
Notice what he says, "will gather out of His kingdom",
His kingdom, not the kingdom of darkness.
His kingdom. "and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that
place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine forth
as the sun and the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears,
let them hear." So Jesus continues to make the parallel between this
parable and the end of the world.
The separation of the tares and the wheat is a mirror of what will happen
at judgment for those who are quote "in the kingdom" not the judgment of the entire world.
I'm not suggesting here there are, there is a judgment here and then there's another judgment.
We've talked about this before and study First Thessalonians. It all happens...
In the bible, the bible describes the events, if you wish,
taking place when Jesus returns, in various places. There's no one page
in the Bible that contains all of the information about what takes place at the end.
But when you put all of them together, all the events that take place,
the dissolution of this world, the new heavens and the earth, the coming of Jesus, the judgment of
the dead in Christ rise, all those different things,
they all happen in the twinkling of an eye.
No time to say, oh wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Is it too late to apologize? We don't have that time.
That's why the warning. Over and over again. He warned. Sometimes I'm thinking,
at the end of the world, this is only a human thought, people saying, "Well, I didn't know."
And He is saying, "how many times do I have to repeat?" How many parables
end this way, how many cautions does He give? How many times do the Apostles warn?
Over and over and over again, be ready.
You never know when he'll come.
So at the end, certainly, there will be a judgment between believers and unbelievers, of course.
But Jesus says that there will also be a separation between those who
believe and those who said that they believed but they didn't belong, them to.
So those who belong in the kingdom will simply remain there. Those who aspire to be in the
kingdom but who give offense to the brethren, to the Lord, to the world,
and those who practice sin, lawlessness,... practice sin
not guilty of sin. We are all guilty of sin.
The thing that we're pursuing as Christians in the church, in the
kingdom, we're pursuing to do away with the
practice of sin in our lives.
Not the occasional sin.
And so those who practice sin will be removed and be placed in hell.
So after this separation the righteous, what does he say? Will be
glorified. What does that refer to? Well, the new
bodies, to enable them to exist in heaven, in the heavenly realm.
We have a physical body made for this earthly realm. We breathe in the air.
We exhale carbon. You know what I'm saying? We were built this way.
We eat the food. We void the waste. We were designed for this place.
And Jesus here and in other places tells us but
we will need a new body, a new container, if you wish, a new essence
in order to survive, in order to exist, the better word, in order to exist in the
dimension that is to come.
We can't exist there with this body, a new body. The Bible refers
to it as a glorified body. And then to be
exalted, lifted up to be with God forever.
So, you know the point of our life, the objective of our
spiritual life is not the glorified body.
The glorified body is simply the means to the end. The glorified body enables
us to exist in another dimension that we see a little bit of now but not quite clearly.
But the purpose for the glorified body is the exaltation
of the individual to be in a different
kind of relationship with God with the Godhead. OK?
They will be of light, pure in intention and
thought and conduct, just like the Heavenly Father. Won't that be wonderful?
No bad thoughts. I'm happy for that. No more bad thoughts.
No more jealousy.
I will no longer be jealous of a brother or sister
that demonstrates a higher level of
devotion or purity or goodness then I.
Imagine, you may be jealous because someone got a nicer car than you and that's earthly, that's fleshly.
But to get the ping of jealousy because you've
seen someone who's just higher than you are better and further into the
kingdom, more developed spiritually.
There won't even be that
little essence of jealousy nothing to spoil anything.
What we say, what we think, what we hope for, what we pray for, what we
declare before God, all of it be good, it's pure,
no impurities from from this world.
So Jesus warns, even his disciples, to pay attention and
be careful to abide by this teaching, according to this,
according to this parable. All right. So this parable also gives us some
significant insight into the kingdom, especially at the end of time.
I told you all these kingdom parables, they give you pieces of the puzzle and he doesn't
say everything there is to say about the kingdom in one parable. You pick up a piece here, a puzzle
there, an idea. Here you start putting it together and it begins to emerge and an image begins to emerge.
So here are some of the things that we learn from this particular
parable, may not be an exhaustive list here, but a couple of things anyways that are obvious.
The kingdom is universal. In other words, God's kingdom is all over the world.
Wherever people respond to His gospel there will grow the good wheat of the kingdom.
Also, that there is good soil everywhere.
Our job is to go plant the seed. It's why we do mission work.
It's why we support people.
That's why we encourage our young people to think larger
thoughts than just Choctaw, Oklahoma. But think, think about Ecuador and think about
East Germany or think about Russia or think about Asia.
Open your mind. The fields are white unto harvest.
Good soil exists everywhere. But those who are sowing the seed
are not everywhere.
Also there is good soil, as I say, everywhere, our jobs to go plant that seed.
The universality of the kingdom we see it.
Another point. There are pretenders in the kingdom.
People leave the church because sometimes they are hypocrites and sinful people
who show no repentance. And the saddest thing in the world is a sincere Godly saint
suffering some kind of offense from
someone who maybe doesn't belong in the kingdom.
And we manage to keep the person who doesn't belong and lose
the person who does.
Because they're under the false impression that once they're in the church they should be surrounded
by people who are better than they are, more perfect than they are, more spiritual
than they are. In other words, you shouldn't see any sin in the church.
And this is impossible right.
There are secret sinners and spies who have no business being here
but they remain to carry on their own agenda.
This mustn't discourage us. This is not a sign of failure of the kingdom. I guess that's my point.
Jesus didn't fail. The church is not failing because there are parts of the
church or individuals in the church who are clearly not living the
Christian life. It's really a sign that Satan is still at work.
That doesn't mean I become lackadaisical. It's not just, oh well,
the church is not perfect. Oh well, there are some people who really are not sincere in the church.
Well no, of course not. I'm going to work on those people. As a minister I'm going to
preach and exhort and admonish and discipline if
I have to those individuals. Why? To save their souls, to get them to really
embrace their faith and to live what they say they believe.
And of course, we know this,
Satan's not interested in Hugh Hefner,
Mr. Playboy, he's not expending a lot of energy trying to destroy his soul.
I think, without making an overall judgment, I think Mr. Hefner has
demonstrated quite clearly that he doesn't believe in God, he's an irreligious
person, that he promotes a lifestyle which is not
compatible, let's put it that way, to Christian thinking.
So, Satan if... I'm just saying this,
if he has so many resources he's not going to a lot a whole lot of resources to try to
spoil Mr. Hefner's soul.
But he will make an effort to perhaps spoil a young
man's soul in the church who's fresh and new as a Christian who does know a lot
who could be tempted by Mr. Hefner's influence
into some kind of secret sin.
You know the number one reason for
the retirement or the withdrawal or the firing of youth ministers
in all churches, all churches I don't mean just the Church of Christ, I mean
all quote Christian churches? Number one reason,
Addiction to pornography, addiction to online pornography. It's terrible.
More young ministers lose their jobs and lose their careers because of that.
And you say, why?
Well because young men and women today, they're online. That's where the temptation is.
The good is, perhaps, but that's where a lot of the temptation lies.
And they've had their lives and their careers and unfortunately their souls
spoiled by that. So absolutely, Satan, he'll
attack the thing that threatens to
destroy his agenda, his influence. And that's the church.
And where will he go? Well, he's not going to go after brother Harold
who's has been an elder for 50 years. I think brother Harold kinda knows what's going on.
He's going to go after Mike. He's going after Jacob.
He's going to go after young men and women. He's going to go after them,
the future leaders, make sure that they don't even get started,
get no traction as far as their faith and their services concerned.
So there are pretenders in the kingdom and the kingdom is targeted specifically by Satan.
Then thirdly, no one escapes judgment, remember, based on this parable.
There are other ideas, but I think this one certainly is clear.
Unfortunately, a lot of times we in the church, we think that our
job is to find out who belongs in the kingdom and who doesn't.
We're the marshal.
But our job is to sow the seed of the kingdom and bear the fruit of the kingdom
not rip out those who feel don't belong here. Remember the workers were not permitted to
pull out the tears.
You think there's a lesson there? You think that there's some sort of parallel with our idea?
We think we know who are the ones that don't belong.
Jesus guarantees that at the end all those who don't
belong in the kingdom will be rooted out, judged and punished, and only those who belong will remain.
He promises that right here. That's what he tells us.
So just like the first century disciples, Jesus says to all who hear his parables,
pay attention. If you have ears to hear, pay attention.
Now this parable was aimed primarily at those who were in the kingdom but didn't belong
there because of their disbelief or their lifestyle, their secret sins or
secret allegiances, and so forth. In real life tares cannot become wheat.
Those who sin, those who deny Jesus, those who are being right
or who are not living right, rather, they can repent. They can be restored to a
right relationship with God again. You see the parallel doesn't work all the way.
In real life, in agricultural terms, it doesn't matter what you do with the tares.
There are always going to be tares.
But in real life, in the kingdom life, those who may not belong, who are
drifting away, who are insincere, they can become wheat,
they can become faithful.
They can be influenced by the word,
by our lifestyle, by our love, by our admonition, by our encouragement.
And I think it's incumbent upon us to make that effort if we see...
not just somebody who is outright evil, but I mean we know a brother or sister who is
struggling. Who are they going to go to for help? We'll not somebody in the
world, that's for sure. We need to be open to that.
Instead of deciding we're the ones that decide who's in or out
maybe we should decide I'm the one who's going to help. I'm the one who's going to encourage this
brother or sister to remain faithful or to maybe step up their game a little bit.
You know the best question to ask? We always hear people in the foyer,
"How's it going? No bad. How you feeling?" But we never ask the question,
"How's your spiritual life?"
That's a legit question. The answer could be, "pretty good,
thank you for asking."
Or it could be "yeah, fine, you know." Or it could be,
"I'm glad you asked because I've been praying about something for quite a while
and I haven't had an answer. Oh really? Yeah.
Would you like to share? Well you know my wife has been sick...?" You know what I'm saying? If you don't
ask you don't get an answer and we're too..
Again, this is not a... I'm not faulting anyone in particular,
but were awfully quick to ask, "So did your team win the
Super Bowl?" Which is fine.
Right? But, "How are you doing spiritually?"
I have a feeling that there are people in our own congregation who ache
and who are just waiting to be opened up just by a
simple show of interest in their
spiritual life and they would respond to that. And all of us would be
stronger for it if we were sensitive.
Remember we come to church because we believe in God and we believe in Christ and we were
looking forward to heaven. We don't have to apologize to each other for
talking to each other about spiritual things. It's not like if you're at
the restaurant somewhere with a bunch of people from work and everybody is having a burger,
a quick lunch from work and in the middle of all of this you say, "Well, has anyone would
like to share their latest spiritual struggles with me?"
There is a time and a place.
But in the church every time is a good time to inquire
about our spiritual condition and to share it with someone else.
So there's a little bit of treatment as far as the parable of the wheat and the tares.
We've got one more lesson to go, that will be next week. Thank you for your attention.