1. The Sower of the good seed – Jesus
2. Field - The world
3. Good seed – Sons of the Kingdom-hopefully that is you. If you have made peace with Christ, through his forgiveness of your sins and sinfulness, then you are saved, reconciled, and an inheritor of God’s kingdom.
4. Weeds – Sons of the Evil One
The tares are a specific sort of weed. They look just like the wheat, all the way until the head sprouts.
This is how Barnes in his commentary applies the definition of Tares: “tares” aptly represented hypocrites in the church. Strongly resembling Christians in their experience, and, in some respects, their lives it is impossible to distinguish them from genuine Christians, nor can they be separated until it is done by the Great Searcher of hearts at the day of judgment.”
But look at this twist in the story from Clarkes commentary. Listen to this:
The word ζιζανια, zizania, which is here translated tares, and should rather be translated bastard or degenerate wheat, is a Chaldee word; therefore its meaning must be sought in the rabbinical writers. In a treatise in the Mishna called Kelayim, which treats expressly on different kinds of seeds, this seed was wholly a right seed in the beginning, but afterwards became degenerate—the ear not being so large, nor the grains in such quantity, as formerly, nor the corn so good in quality.
5. The Sower of Weeds – The Devil
The evil one comes unseen, does his work, and leaves unnoticed. The evil one loves to sow bad seed where truth itself is expounded. It’s like Satan is a copy cat killer. Satan follows God around. Every time Jesus sows good seed, Satan is there to sow bad seed. Just when you think Satan is so crafty, even as the scriptures describe him, yet he uses the same trail as Jesus. In other words, he can’t even come up with his own plan. He doesn’t use his own field, for he has none. He just follows Jesus around.
6. Harvest – The end of the age
7. Harvesters – The angels
It is about judging one another isn’t it? How to live a life of faithfulness among others whose motives are not pure, and it’s not always clear how to live when in this kind place.
This parable is about knowing what to do when we cannot know people’s hearts for sure. It’s about persevering in an age of indifference to right and wrong, when there are certainly alternative motives of the heart. This parable is telling us that we cannot always tell the difference until the fruit is born in a person’s life.
So what’s the one remedy for this challenge from the Lord? Patience(to
wait) and perseverance(to see it through).
There are times when we struggle with making good judgments in life. But do you know why? Even though there are times that we may suspect evil in one or another person, we must only deal with the sins that are clear and not try to snuff out unseen or unrevealed sin. Aren’t there times when we see things and we suspect spiritual mischief, but we cannot act, even in love to go someone when we do not know for sure what is going on. Oh, we can love, encourage, bless, and support one another in many ways. But to confront, or really put someone on the front burner of judgment, that is another thing altogether.
To understand what this parable is saying and what it is not saying, look at I Corinthians 5:1-5 as an example.
You see the purpose of God’s law is to reveal us as law breakers, and when we clearly break God’s law we deal with it by grace and truth. In other words, we must call sin sin. But once we know sin is sin, how do we deal with it? That is good question, and one that deserves another message. No doubt we need a good approach to dealing with sin in the body of Christ. But this parable is dealing with those areas where the sin is not obvious, and we must allow time to reveal the truth.
Randy – cutting out sourdock in fields at the farm. The weeds were so obvious.
Judy growing weeds in her garden, not knowing they were weeds. Judy was even tending the weeds unknowingly. A garden club member came along to admire Judy’s garden, but asked by she was letting such a prominent weed grow in her garden.
Judy’s first response was protection of the weed. She really thought it was a flower. But then in time she realized she had to agree, and so pulled it out.
Look at verse 28-29 now. - “The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’ 29“‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them.
The church today
commits three errors:
1. We are judgmental in areas when we do not really know people’s hearts. We jump to conclusions. We prejudge. And this rips the body of Christ apart. Do you know how many people leave the church because of the pre-judging that goes on in the church? If we ever err, we must err in grace and love, not judgment. Isn’t this why Jesus said that “before you confront your brother about the speck in his eye, you must remove the log from your own.”
2. We do not go to people with the right attitude to help them out of obvious sins. Or let me add, when we see even spiritual mischief, we turn our attention another way. Why? Because we are afraid to get involved. There person might actually open up to us, and that would cost us something. Like time, or resources, or whatever God might have for us? We fear the unknown reactions people might have, so we hesitate and do not go in love.
3.
One of the reasons both of these errors are
disastrous is this: We allow certain obvious sins to go unchecked.
- Have you ever seen Christians with favorite sins. It’s as it we have a conviction about one area of life, but ignore others. Sometimes we are blinded to certain sin, and if handled in the right way, others can help us to see our error.
- You see, as Christians live on in this life. If not careful, we become blinded to certain sins, and we let certain things slide, and our ethics are not consistent with our life.
- When confronted sin costs us economically, or socially, do we turn our head, and ignore the deep conviction in our heart?
There are 2 bottom lines in this parable:
1. When you cannot know the heart of the matter, you must let it go. It rests in the hand of the almighty.
2. When you see clearly the fruit when it blossoms, you must deal in pure motives of love and mercy, not judgment.
When the wheat grows up, and when the tares grow up, there is a tell tale sign. The good wheat when opened will be white and will taste sweet, but the weeds will be black and bitter even to the point of making your stomach sick. So it really does take patience and perseverance.
Frank was such a person. Raised in a hellish home, Frank spent much of his early life in our home. As I had 3 brothers, Frank was really a 4th brother in our home, and my best friend. His home consisted with a father who after a war injury had a plate in his head keeping him from developing any further than talking, but not being able to read or even write well. Frank’s mom dealt over the years with mental illness, and so Frank lived dysfunctionly in so many ways.
Frank found Christ and sought a better way. I spent many
a day in Frank’s house a block from mine, witnessing the pans and knives
passed from one room to the other, and even some of the trouble and sin that
touched my life in my rebellious years there.
But just a block away, our church loved, and cared for
this family. Through a loving
body of believers both in our church and in Youth for Christ which helped raise
us up spiritually, socially and otherwise, Frank went from a seed with weed
implications to a seed with incredible wheat blessings. Today Frank loves his wife Kathy of nearly 30
years, with 2 daughters and a son that seek the Lord. I remember spending many of my days at Franks grandmas house where Frank spent much of his early
life. Gramma Stimlie did not know the Lord in any way, and was
embittered at her daughter’s negligence of her grandchildren. But through Frank’s early faith in Christ,
she many years later came to faith. She
attends the Peoria FM church today. It
was on his grandpas death bed, that Frank had the
pleasure to witness one more time and lead his grandpa to Christ. I remember my visit back in
Are you a wheat or a weed? When God cracks open your stalk, will it reveal white and sweet, or black and bitter?
There is one way around this entire parable though. Would you like to circumvent the entire reason for this parable? Simply have a repentant heart of all that is within you.
1. In one way, you might be seeking the Christian life, and have never fully experienced Christ. Living as wheat where when your life sprouts, you want to bear good fruit, and I can tell that Jesus is just waiting to enter your heart and give you an awesome filled fruit life and eternity. Have a repentant heart.
2. Have you been pre-judging your fellow Christians? Have a repentant heart.
Have you been winking at sin recently or maybe for a long time? Have a repentant heart.