Apr. 16, 2023

The Kingdom - the Parable of the Wheat and Tares (BTS 16 Apr 23)

Introduction - The Parables of Matthew 13 were taught by Jesus as a means of informing His disciples and those who were being drawn by the Holy Ghost about how His Kingdom operates, how it is constructed, who will be in it, what life in it will be like, etc. This was a mystery to the Romans, Greeks and Jews and everyone else who had rejected Jesus’ gentle rule.  Today we’ll look at the parable of the “wheat and the tares (weeds).”

Matthew 13:24 Here is another story Jesus told: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a farmer who planted good seed in his field. 25 But that night as the workers slept, his enemy came and planted weeds among the wheat, then slipped away. 26 When the crop began to grow and produce grain, the weeds also grew. 27 “The farmer’s workers went to him and said, ‘Sir, the field where you planted that good seed is full of weeds! Where did they come from?’ 28 “‘An enemy has done this!’ the farmer exclaimed. “‘Should we pull out the weeds?’ they asked. 29 “‘No,’ he replied, ‘you’ll uproot the wheat if you do. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest. Then I will tell the harvesters to sort out the weeds, tie them into bundles, and burn them, and to put the wheat in the barn.’”  NLT

Jesus interprets this parable for us as follows:

Matthew 13:36 Then, leaving the crowds outside, Jesus went into the house. His disciples said, “Please explain to us the story of the weeds in the field.” 37 Jesus replied, “The Son of Man is the farmer who plants the good seed. 38 The field is the world, and the good seed represents the people of the Kingdom. The weeds are the people who belong to the evil one. 39 The enemy who planted the weeds among the wheat is the devil. The harvest is the end of the world, and the harvesters are the angels. 40 “Just as the weeds are sorted out and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the world. 41 The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will remove from his Kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. 42 And the angels will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 43 Then the righteous will shine like the sun in their Father’s Kingdom. Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand! NLT

In the first parable of Matthew 13 involving sowing, the sower was likely Jesus, sowing the Word in His (as in the NLT) field, which would be the church.  In the parable of the wheat and tares, Jesus is sowing people into the world.  At the same time, the devil is sowing evil people into the same world.  

This leads us to several important, comforting, and useful conclusions:

1. Jesus’ process of sowing involves the new birth.  You can’t see the Kingdom of God unless you are born again.  Therefore, every good person who was sown by Jesus came out from Satan’s kingdom through salvation and responding to the Word of the Kingdom.  Satan, by contrast, has to rely on the physical, natural man to be born with a typical sin nature for his kingdom to grow.  Jesus can save thousands of people in a matter of minutes if need be, outstripping Satan’s ability to sow bad people into the world, leaving Satan’s kingdom with a declining population.  The church just needs to do its job or making disciples.  

2.  The world will always have evil in it until the 2nd Coming of Christ. This is evident when the Lord says

      to let the tares grow alongside the wheat until the harvest.  There won’t be a moment when the US, or the

      world for that matter, is all Christian.  There will always be evil to contend with.  This age will continue 

      about like it is now, probably with ups and downs as regional and city churches in varied locations with

      varied levels of success take back areas which Adam ceded to the devil long ago.  The translation or 

      rapture of the church will end this age of the church and start the 7-year Tribulation which ends with the 

      Coming of Christ.  

3.  The world will not end in some catastrophic, unannounced way (a nuclear war, a catastrophic plague,

     global warming, etc.).  It will end as God plans it to end, i.e., after the 1,000-year reign of Christ on earth, 

     God, not man, will destroy the old earth and make a new one, placing us there.  At the 2nd Coming of 

     Christ, which occurs at the start of the 1,000-year reign of Christ, there will be the gathering of evil people

     for punishment and righteous people for placement in the Millennial kingdom.