02 - Parable Of The Wheat And Tares! 2020 By Pastor Jeff Wickwire Notes

Matt 13:24-30 “Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; 25 but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. 26 But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. 27 So the servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ 28 He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said to him, ‘Do you want us then to go and gather them up?’ 29 But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, ‘First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.’”

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This parable is directly connected to the parable of the sower we looked at last time.

It involves another sower sowing “good seed.”

In the first parable the seed is the gospel of Jesus Christ sown into the hearts of men and women.

But when Jesus interprets this 2nd parable in verses 37-43, He says that the good seed is the “sons of the kingdom” or Christians.

He further tells the disciples that “the field” they are sown into is the world.

So in the first parable the gospel seed is sown into the hearts of men and women.

In the second parable those that are saved are in turn sown into the world to be people of influence—salt and light.

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Then Jesus says that an enemy sneaks in at night and sows tares right next to the wheat.

A TARE is a poisonous weed that looks a lot like wheat in the early stages.

If eaten by a person or an animal, it can cause nausea, convulsions, and sometimes even death!

So this act by an enemy is intended to ruin the wheat crop of the farmer by infiltrating the good with the bad.

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As the parable continues—when the servants of the owner of the field notice the tares, they ask him if he wants them to pull them up, like we would pull up weeds.

He says no....you might pull up the wheat along with them—wait, he says, for the reapers to do it.

And Jesus finally says that the reapers in the parable are the angels, and the harvest is the end of the age when Christ returns.

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Now, let’s unpack it.

We have three stages in this parable—the sowing of the seed, the growing of the seed, and the mowing of the seed at harvest time.

First:

The sowing

The sower sows good seed, which represents us Christians being sown into the world by the Lord Himself that we might influence others for Him!

He compares us to WHEAT—and interestingly, wheat and Christians have some things in common:

Wheat doesn’t have a deep root system.

Remember in the first parable Jesus illustrated the need to have strong roots in our Christian life.

But in this parable the focus is more on not being deeply rooted and attached to this world—deep roots in Christ, shallow roots in the world.

Real wheat doesn’t go very deep compared to how high it gets.

It’s easily uprooted.

So we could say that, in the same way wheat is not firmly attached to this world, the same ought to be true of us!

The Bible says in the book of Hebrews: “For this world is not our permanent home; we are looking forward to a home yet to come” (Hebrews 13:14 NLT).

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Another thing about wheat is that it doesn’t last very long.

Wheat grows and ripens, bears its fruit, and quickly passes off the scene.

Likewise, when we are saved we grow in grace, bear what fruit God wants us to bear, and soon go home.

James wrote, “Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone” (James 4:14 NLT).

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Still another thing about wheat is that it grows upward but dies downward.

And we too should become more and more alive to things above, and dead to the things below.

The Apostle Paul said, “set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth, for you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God.” (Col 3:2 KJV, NLT).

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Now, Jesus said that the devil ALSO did some sowing.

13:25 NLT “But that night as the workers slept, his enemy came and planted weeds among the wheat, then slipped away.”

Notice how the enemy comes by night, in the dark, and secretly sows weeds right next to the wheat.

At first glance they look like Christians.

But Jesus says in verse 38 that, “The tares are the people of the evil one,”

Paul wrote of these kinds of people: “They will do things to make it look as if they are Christians. But they will not receive the power that is for a Christian” (2 Tim. 3:5 NLV).

And this explains how the wrong people gain influence in the church and wind up corrupting it...

They appear to be Christians but have been sown by the devil.

This is why Jesus warned us to “Beware of false teachers who come disguised as harmless sheep, but are wolves and will tear you apart” (Matt 7:15 LB).

So in the first part of the parable we have the sowing of wheat by Jesus, and the sowing of weeds by the devil.

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After the sowing we have:

II. The growing

The workers in the parable wanted to know if they should pull the tares out like weeds.

Jesus says no: “Let both grow together until the harvest” (Matt 13:30 NLT).

So you have tares growing up right alongside wheat, the good next to the bad, the true next to the false.

You have a true preacher on TV right next to a false one.

A true Christian living with a false one.

A genuine believer sitting in church next to a false one.

A true church on the same block as a false cult.

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The parable points out that sometimes it’s easy to tell if someone is real or not, and sometimes only God knows.

Jesus said, “You can identify them by their fruit, that is, by the way they act....just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions” (Matt. 7:16, 20 NLT).

With the ones that are clearly tares, their lifestyles will tell the story.

Do they live according to Jesus’ teachings?

Do they embrace and order their lives around what the Bible teaches?

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But sometimes only God knows!

And Jesus’ message in the parable is that the truth will all come out in:

III. The mowing

Jesus said, “For nothing is secret that will not be revealed, nor anything hidden that will not be known and come to light” (Lk. 8:17 NKJV).

This will happen when, “The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth” (Matt 13:41-42 NKJV).

At the same time, “Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (13:43 NKJV).

Jesus’ return will be a time of shock and awe!

In the Sermon on the Mount He warned: “On judgment day many will say to me, ‘Lord! Lord! We prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name.’ 23 But I will reply, ‘I never knew you. Get away from me, you who break God’s laws’” (Matt 7: 22-23 NLT).

In other words, they talked the talk but their lifestyles didn’t reflect having been truly born again.

In another place he said that when He returns, “Two men will be working together in the field; one will be taken, the other left. 41 Two women will be grinding flour at the mill; one will be taken, the other left” (Matt. 24:40-41 NLT).

Luke adds, “That night two people will be asleep in one bed; one will be taken, the other left” (Luke 17:34 NLT).

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So in closing, the 2nd parable leaves us with 3 key truths:

In the SOWING we’re reminded that we are sown by the Lord as wheat into the world as a witness.

In the GROWING we’re encouraged to grow up into Him and bear kingdom fruit.

In the MOWING we’re urged to always be ready for His return!

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