Word of Salvation – Vol. 40 No.11 – March 1995

 

What About The Weeds?

 

Sermon by Rev. R. G. Adams on Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

Suggested Hymns: BoW 22A 25:1-5 218:1,2,5 452 500:1-3 500:4 (Dox)

 

Dear Congregation.

People find many excuses for not believing in Jesus Christ.  Just about the most common objection would have to go something like this: “If God is true, why doesn’t He help people in need, like people in Africa who are starving and dying?”

Any person who asks this wants to know “why God doesn’t do something about evil in the world.”  ‘Not a new question, by any means.  You can even find such a question in several Psalms.  Jeremiah adds his own version: “I would speak with you about your justice: Why does the way of the wicked prosper?” (Jeremiah 12:1)

In the passages just read, the disciples ask the same thing (verse 36): “What about the weeds in the field?”

WHAT ABOUT THE WEEDS? is the subject of this sermon!

At least two of Jesus’ disciples, James and John, could have been keen for the Lord to act with regard to ‘weeds in the field’.  They once asked about Samaritan villages: “Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?” (Luke 9:54)

Jesus gave them a ‘dressing down’.  Luke doesn’t tell us what He said, but we can guess: “You impetuous hot-heads.”  Jesus gave them a name, ‘sons of thunder’.  “Who are you to call down judgment on anyone?”  Patience, obviously, wasn’t one of their strong points.

In Matthew 13 the disciples still want to know, “Will God do something about ‘weeds’ in the field?”  So, Jesus explains in terms of judgment.

The Son of Man Himself, sows good seed in His field.  The FIELD is the world.  The good seed sprouts and they become good plants, representing sons of the Kingdom.  The devil sows bad seed among the good, and these spring up into bad plants.  They are the sons of the evil one.

However, at harvest time, which is Judgment Day, the reapers will separate the two.  The bad are burned and the good are brought into the Kingdom.

In effect, Jesus is saying, “We’d better get used to living with evil in the world, right up until the judgment.”  He also implies, “Disciples, don’t worry on this score.  I have it under control.”

It implies that Jesus will know what to do with unrepentant sinners and evil people.  He will deal with the CAUSE of sin.  He’ll take proper action in the case of EVIL itself.

At the appropriate time, Jesus, as Lord, will take care of the weeds in His field.  The world WILL be cleaned up.  It is GOING to be God’s Kingdom and the Kingdom of His Son.  Just as the parable of “leaven in the lump of dough” teaches – there won’t be a single area in the whole world where God’s rule does not extend.

So, if you’re of a mind to ask, “WHAT WILL GOD DO ABOUT THE WEEDS IN THE FIELD?” the answer is: Jesus has told you.

But this explains only the weeds in the field.  Jesus didn’t explain a big slice of the parable.  “The owner’s servants asked, ‘Do you want us to pull them up?’  ‘No… as you pull the weeds, you may uproot wheat with them.  Let both grow together until the harvest.” (verses 26-30)

Jesus says that the FIELD is the world.  No mention of a church.  But if the contamination is general throughout the world, we’d be foolish to think that the church is immune.

It leaves us to ask a question the disciples forgot to ask: WHAT ABOUT WEEDS…  IN THE CHURCH?  It’s one thing for the Lord to let good and evil exist side by side in the world.  It’s something else altogether when evil dwells alongside good in His church.  Is it possible to have “weeds’ in the church?

Wheat and weeds, in this case, tares, look very similar at first.  You can’t tell one from the other.  But as it ripens, wheat turns golden brown in the sun.  The weeds, tares, turn black and poisonous.  When they form heads, you can tell the two plants apart.

The Lord patiently allows the two to mature together until you can tell wheat from a masquerade of the real thing.  If the Lord is patient with ‘weeds’, then we have to be patient, too.  Until “by their fruit you will recognise them” (Matthew 7:16).

So, be forewarned.  There will never be a time when the church is completely free of weeds, not until the final harvest.  A perfect church in any generation is a pipe-dream.

Realise that the sowing Jesus refers to, good seed and bad, ISN’T a once-only thing.  The Lord sows good seed, i.e., the gospel is preached continually.  To each generation, in turn!  Satan, of course, does his damnedest to contaminate the good with his evil… continually!!

But, we are to be examples of the Lord’s patience, even with ‘weeds’ in the church.  That doesn’t mean we ought not to do something about ‘weeds’ when we can recognise them by their fruit.  We have church discipline for that purpose.

But church discipline must be a slow process.  Church discipline must be a patient process.  It may be a frustrating process.  Never, never rush things!  As we try to remove ‘weeds’, we may actually destroy sons of the Kingdom in the process.

Again and again, the Lord confronts us with His infinite patience.  We ought to be saying, “thank you, Lord, for your patience.”  For, in this parable, it’s not just a matter of good people versus bad people.  We also have to contend with good people, contaminated by bad.  Doesn’t Jesus mention “every cause of sin”?  “He who has ears, let him hear!”

We all must ask another question: WHAT ABOUT THE WEEDS… IN ME?  Let’s not kid ourselves.  If Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light (2Corinthians 11:14), don’t be at all surprised if, in many ways and on many occasions, we look just like masquerades of righteousness.

A M Hunter captures this in a little verse:
    There is so much good in the worst of us,
   And so much bad in the best of us,
   That it hardly becomes any of us,
   To talk about the rest of us.

Jesus is patient.  We’re all, to some extent, influenced by evil.  There will never be a time when we are completely free of ‘weeds’.  Not until the final harvest.

We just have to think of PRIDE as an example.  We aren’t quick to brag about the ‘crummy’ things we do.  When we achieve something pretty good, though, we feel ‘good’ about it.  It’s not wrong to feel ‘good’.  But, if we’re not careful, just a little jump from feeling ‘good’ is to feel better than someone else’.  What could have been a golden grain of wheat has matured into a full-blown ‘weed’.

Jesus is patient, giving us every chance to recognise our own weeds by their fruit; every chance for us to lay our sins, our shortcomings and our failures on the line, in the light of day, in the Father’s light; to be washed clean away in the blood of Jesus.

Our Lord is patient, until we have a chance to mature.  Every chance for the good grain to fill out, to turn shining gold in the light of His Son.  Every chance to be influenced, not by Satan, but by “the aroma of Christ” (2Corinthians 2:15).  A chance for change to take place in the areas in our lives that need changing.

WHAT ABOUT THE WEEDS?

There will eventually be no place for weeds in the Kingdom of God: neither in the world, nor the church, nor the individual.  Every weed will be rooted out.  The Lord, Himself, will take care of that problem.

In the meantime, we have to do everything possible to aid the ripening process.  We do well to make sure our influence is not sown by Satan.  The only way to be even half-way sure of that is to have our attention fixed firmly on the ripening Son…  Jesus Christ Himself.

Amen.