Word of Salvation – Vol. 26 No. 40 – July 1980

 

The Harvest Time For The Wheat And The Tares

 

Sermon by Rev. H. W. Pennings on Matthew 13:24-30 and 36-43.

 

It will not need much explaining, beloved of the Lord, that while the “Kingdom of heaven” is heaven-bound, we are still not in heaven. This is obvious, isn’t it? Even when we examine ourselves we know that we cannot enter into heaven just as we are. If you have ever read the book, “Hellbent for Election”, which I have to confess is not great literature, you’ll have understood partly what changes have to be made. This book is highly recommended, and would make an excellent “book review” to be presented at a Bible Study evening or for a youthclub introduction. How about trying that? You’ll greatly benefit from it.

(1) In this parable of our Lord, which is commonly known as the “parable of the wheat and the tares,” while He speaks primarily about the future that is, the time when the harvesters will separate the tares from the wheat its application is wholly for today. For, in this parable, the Lord brings rich comfort to all who trust in Him for their salvation. If once you professed before Jesus and His Church that He, Jesus, is your Saviour and your Lord, and if you are still making that profession of faith today, there will be times when you are sad and downcast. You may even question sometimes if belonging to the Kingdom of heaven, which has as its visible sign the Church, has a great deal of value. More and more often we hear of groups of Christian people “getting away from it all” and forming Christian communes which have extremely strict rules for joining. For instance, if you smoke or drink you are automatically excluded, and if you are known as a troublesome person, one who argues on after a decision has been made, you may also quietly be told that the commune can do without you.

Why are people sometimes downcast about the church? Why do some even want to withdraw from her altogether? Jesus’ parable will provide some answers.

(2) It is a simple story which Jesus tells to that great multitude gathered around the sea-shore while He was sitting in a boat. After the farmer had sown good wheat-seed in his fields an enemy of his, under the cover of darkness, sowed some tares. Their common name today is “bearded darnel”, which, in blade resembles wheat, but can be clearly distinguished from it when they both receive some length. In early days it used to be the task of the servants, and even the women and children of the farmer’s household, – a tedious task indeed – of going along the rows and pulling the tares out by the root. Jesus used this example from everyday life, for often rival farmers, or others who hated the farmer, would do what Jesus described. It was a crime under Roman law. When the farmer’s servants realized what had happened they wanted to do what had usually to be done; to gather those tares and feed them to the chickens: yes, apparently, it was good chicken food!

In the parable which the Lord told His eager hearers, the farmer made an unusual pronouncement. What He said must have caused any listening farmers to shake their heads in disagreement. For the farmer told his servant not to gather up the tares, but to let the tares and the wheat grow up together. Only later on, at harvest-time, would the separation be made. No doubt any listening farmers would have shaken their heads even more when Jesus had the farmer tell his servants to burn the tares later on. For, not only would there be a lesser crop of wheat, for, apparently, the tares could be pulled out without disturbing the wheat very much, but why such further wastage? Why not feed the tares to the farmyard fowls?

Did we say it was a simple story? Apparently Jesus’ disciples, when they were alone with Him later on, couldn’t understand it at all. This was something completely new. They had heard the Parable of the Sower, and Jesus’ later explanation ― that the Sower was God Himself; the seed was the gospel; the ground was the world in which we live. Yet the disciples were very much confused, although they knew that both these parables were about the Kingdom of heaven. “Explain to us the parable about the tares in the field,” they asked Jesus.

So, Jesus explains. The good seeds are the sons of the kingdom in other words, the true members of the visible church: those who have professed that Jesus is their Lord and Saviour and who keep on professing it daily. The enemy who sowed the tares in the visible church is the devil, who even now is trying to destroy the good work which God has done. The time for harvest is the time when Jesus comes again with His heavenly host of angels. It is the time for judgement which we profess in our creed: “…..and He will come again to judge the living and the dead.” At the time of judgement Jesus’ messengers will take out of the Church all those who were there by false pretences; those who frequently obstructed the cause of the Kingdom of heaven with their simulated faith and who were an obstacle or stumbling block to true believers.

(3) In this parable of the wheat and the tares, therefore, Jesus is preparing His disciples for the work ahead. When you try to give every single word which Jesus uses in this parable a meaning all on its own you can come up with various interpretations ― indeed, you can come up with some very false theology. For instance, is God ever asleep, or can Satan ever do anything which God doesn’t know about? Can we accuse God of contradicting Himself or of injustice just because a few years later He did weed out two of the tares: Ananias with his wife Sapphira? The Lord spoke in many parables, but each of these parables has only one main meaning. Here the meaning is plain. So long as the true Church continues to be a pilgrim church ― that is, until the time when all believers are in heaven with their Lord ― unbelievers and hypocrites will mingle with those who seek to live as true Christian disciples. Jesus warns the disciples and the Church about this beforehand in order that we understand why we cannot always dwell in the love and unity we pray and sing about. Jesus tells us these things to make us not to lose heart, as some do, but to make us endure to the end.

Jesus here warns about Satan’s work in the church. We have already mentioned Ananias and Sapphira whom Satan planted in the church, but we know that their immediate punishment, their immediate death, was not usual even in the time of the apostles. Scripture teaches that not all who say, “Lord, Lord”, belong to the Lord. In nearly every New Testament epistle the apostles warn us to be on our guard about those who profess Christ with their mouths but who profess Satan with their deeds. They were in Corinth, in Rome, in Galatia and in Thessalonica – people whom Satan planted in the church.

In this parable the Lord teaches us that He will not immediately take them out of the church. As soon as Christ gathers a small flock of believers, even in our own day, and these believers become a local church, Satan will be busy planting his imitation believers, and God will allow him to do it and God will not weed them out immediately. These imitation believers will do much harm in the church — not uncontrolled harm so that the imitation believers push out the true believers — although even that has happened occasionally. It has happened in cases known to me in our Australian churches where Satan’s disciples made it so uncomfortable for Jesus’ disciples that they went to another church; it was the only thing they could do under the circumstances.

(4) But when Jesus comes again in glory and in judgement there will be a separation of the tares from the wheat. All those whom Satan sowed in the visible church — all those who are not really believers — will be judged and will be found guilty of lawlessness — that is, of rejecting Jesus Christ who is the righteousness of all who believe. Especially will Jesus show no mercy to those who grew up in the church; heard the gospel, but still had a satanic lifestyle. Satan is the father of lies and corruption and wrangling. Satan is the one who tries to break down what God builds up. Then the tares will be gathered and burnt. Then all unbelievers will suffer eternal hell, where, our text says, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. While we may not fully understand what all this means, we know that when Jesus our Saviour was about to suffer hell He prayed earnestly three times if there was not another way. Jesus looked on hell as being so terrible.

On the other hand, says Jesus, quoting from the prophet Daniel, “Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun.” If we believe in Jesus as Saviour and Lord, we will be declared righteous (having fulfilled the law of the Lord) and holy (sinless), on the day of judgement, and will go on to our reward: the reward which Jesus merited for us. While Christians are now called “the light of the world”, in heaven all that is still dim will have been removed. In the “new heaven and new earth” there will be nothing which is anything less than totally glorious, and all believers will fully be a part of this glory.

We are then in the mansion which Jesus has gone to prepare for us. For Christians, Jesus’ second coming will be no less glorious than His first coming, and it may even be the case that the radiance of our immortal bodies will be too bright to be looked upon by those who are suffering in the darkness.

(5) At the beginning of the sermon we noted that, while the parable seems to speak primarily about the future about this final separation of the tares from the wheat and their ultimate goal — nevertheless it is mainly applicable to today. We will just have to learn to put up with the sects, and, of course, not be surprised that more and more people are joining them. God is not going to have them pulled up until the time for harvest comes! Why not? He doesn’t tell us. We also have to realize that there are many people within the folds of the more evangelical churches — also our own — who are planted there by Satan. God warns us about it first of all, and then asks us to pray earnestly for guidance so that we may recognize the children of Satan and, if possible, call them to repentance. If they will not repent they have to be placed under church discipline because they will not, even cannot, repent, and will ultimately have to be excommunicated.

Yes, while it is true that God will not separate them from His church until the time for harvest, He still calls upon us to endure to the end and faithfully to obey Him when He commands us not to endure their presence in the church. Some Biblical commentators speak against our Reformed concept of church discipline from this parable, but that interpretation is without any basis either in this part of Scripture or any other part. God still gives us, as church members, the task to keep the church pure, and it’s a task which we have to take seriously. While the Lord could send His angelic host to sow the Word of the gospel, you and I are entrusted with that charge. And while the Lord could surely root out what Satan has planted, He gives also that task to you and me. Let us be faithful in it, not for our glory, but for the glory of the Lord and the purity of the Church which is the Bride of Jesus Christ the Bridegroom.

Finally, receive some comfort from this Word of Jesus, beloved of the Lord. Don’t despair about the Church. You don’t have to, God is perfectly in control. And remember also the promise which you have. God has given you, whom He (not Satan) has planted, many talents which you can use for His glory even although there are some who are members of the church who try to spoil things for you. They will not prevail, but you will prevail, and your work will prevail. God has prepared it beforehand for you to do.

Receive also the comfort of the knowledge that you will be taken up to glory after the judgement. You have nothing to fear from that awful time for some, if you are a true child of God’s planting. For you will be judged by none other than Jesus Christ who purchased your freedom from slavery to Satan and to sin. Rejoice that a day is coming, and coming quickly, when you are with your Lord after the judgement, and pray for that day to come quickly. For you it will be a glorious day, for you’ll receive what the Father has in store for you.

Now you are still a pilgrim — heaven-bound, but not yet in heaven. Now you are still surrounded by the servants and angels of Satan who make things unpleasant for us even in the church which Jesus purchased by His blood on Golgotha. But our pilgrimage will surely end.

Finally, we repeat again, keep on warning those whom you see to be walking in darkness and heading for eternal destruction. You and I must not judge, for we have no idea who is and who is not with their name in God’s book of life. Keep on praying for them, and love them unceasingly both in your actions towards them and in the words that you speak to them in Christ’s name. God has given us that task; the task so to work among men, and especially the members of the church, that there can be rejoicing in heaven over just one who has come into repentance.

Amen.